


I'd Follow You Anywhere

by Emachinescat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dean Whump, Gen, Mild Language, Mystery, Sam Whump, Season/Series 02, Supernatural Elements, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emachinescat/pseuds/Emachinescat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Orleans, Louisiana. Six people have died in the past two weeks. All ruled suicides. Three jumped off cliffs, three drowned in a bog. And this isn't the first time it's happened. A job for Sam and Dean? Most definitely. But this case just might hit a little too close to home as the guys are forced to face up to their mistakes and fears in the most cruel way imaginable. Season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Remember Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own, for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Sorry if there aren't any cliffs in New Orleans. For the sake of this story, there are at least a couple; poetic license and all that. :)
> 
> Enjoy. :)

He stood at the window, back stiff and muscles tight, eyes locked on something outside, something on the lawn outside his second story window.

"Carter?" He jumped, tearing his eyes away from whatever was so interesting down below, and turned to face his wife, a beautiful chocolate-skinned woman wearing nothing but a thin pink slip that reached just above her knees. His eyes, wide and dark, met his wife's. "Carter, you comin' to bed?"

He swallowed heavily and Lilian narrowed her eyes. "I—" He tried to speak but his voice failed him. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Y-yes. Of course."

Frowning, he allowed his wife to lead him to bed, trying to focus on how sweet her smooth skin smelled and the way her long brown hair tickled his face. His mind kept returning to the window, to those sad, blue-grey eyes that had stared at him from their overgrown yard. Finally, after Lilian had fallen asleep, he detangled their respective limbs and climbed out of bed, wearing only his boxers. His bare feet padded softly, muffled, as he made his way once more to the window and looked down.

His heart skipped a beat and then started hammering harder than before, slamming into his rib cage in fear, excitement, adrenaline. She was there. She met his gaze with a tiny smile, a dimple appearing that he knew all too well. His heart swelling with joy – his fear was now pushed away to the back of his mind – Carter threw on his housecoat and raced across the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. Once on the veranda, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the night and looked around. Where did she go?

Ah. There. He smiled as the girl stepped into his line of sight, raven hair cascading in perfect little ringlets over her small shoulders. Blue-grey eyes glinted with mischief, just like they always had. Her coffee colored skin seemed to almost shine in the moonlight. In her frilly white dress – his heart caught in his throat; that was the same one they'd buried her in – and dimpled smile, his Melanie looked like a little angel. Perhaps she was.

He opened his mouth to speak, wanting to hear her name, but she simply smiled mysteriously, placing a chubby finger in front of her lips. He fell silent, afraid he might scare her away. He wouldn't want that.

They stood there for several moments, neither moving, simply staring at one another, an unspoken conversation hanging in the air. Then she turned her back and walked away.

Carter's heart leapt into his throat; where was she going? They'd just been reunited, he couldn't lose her again! Without a second thought, he was tearing after her as she walked out of the yard and into the wood surrounding the remote home. "Melanie!" he found himself whispering, afraid that if he called her name too loudly, he'd startle her away for good. He was just able to keep her in his sights as it was, her white dress contrasting enough with the surrounding darkness that he could tell where she was going.

He followed her, his Melanie always staying within eyesight but only just. Sometimes he would despair, fearing that he'd lost her, but then he would see a snatch of white or hear a sweet, echoing giggle, and he'd plow on in that direction. When she finally stopped, he saw that she was halfway across a clearing, standing in a grove surrounded by gnarled old trees, their roots rising from the mossy ground and then dipping back down. The air was muggy and warm; mosquitos buzzed angrily around his face. He didn't care. He stared at _her_ face, unable to take his eyes off of her. She was so beautiful.

"Melanie…" When he spoke to her, his voice was cracked with emotion and longing.

She smiled at him. "Do you miss me?" she asked, eyes wide and innocent.

His heart curled into itself as he answered desperately, terrified that she was about to leave him again. "Of course, I do, baby. I miss you…" He choked.

"We can be together again, you know," she said, and her eyes twinkled with hope. "Follow me?"

"Oh, baby," he said, voice hitching, "I'd follow you anywhere."

"Good," she giggled, then turned and took off at a run. "Then let's go!"

Smiling, Carter darted after her. A third of the way across the clearing, he realized he was slowing down. Halfway across, and his legs were moving sluggishly. But still he followed. Soon he could barely move his body at all. Everything was wet. Something squelched as he tried to take a step and instead sunk even deeper into the bog he was immersed to the neck in. He didn't even seem to notice. He followed Melanie, praying he'd be able to catch up, trying to move faster…

And then it became too deep. His feet found no purchase and he began to try to push his way through the muck and slime, eyes fixed on Melanie who stood on the marshy ground above him like she weighed nothing. She was walking on water, an angel.  _My angel._

The last thing Carter LeGrange saw before the bog finally became too much and he began to sink in earnest was Melanie standing over him, a smirk on her small face. "Goodbye, Daddy," she crooned before melting away into the mists of the bog.

The bog closed over Carter's head and the forest was still and quiet once more.


	2. Chapter 2

"So," said the tall, dark, shaggy-haired man that sat across from his brother at the dinky motel's dining table shuffling through a small mound of papers. "I think I've found us another job."

His brother, sandy-haired, green eyed, twenty-seven year old Dean Winchester, raised his eyebrows but didn't respond otherwise since he was busy trying to stuff the rest of his fully loaded breakfast burrito into his mouth in one go.

Sam raised his eyebrows in return, the expression on his face incredulous as he watched his brother tuck away his breakfast. Dean swallowed the remainder of his burrito and prompted, "Well?"

Sam rolled his eyes and turned his attention away from his hungry brother to the papers in front of him. "I saw this," he said, turning his laptop around so that Dean could see the article on the screen, "when I went online to check my mail this morning. It was the top story on MSN's home page."

Dean snorted. "MSN, for all your ghost-busting needs."

Sam shook his head. "Seriously, Dean. This is pretty big."

Dean smirked but turned his attention to the article, leaving Sam to rifle through his other papers while he read. The silence between them was a bit strained although neither would admit it. Heck, their whole relationship had been a little strained since their father's death a few months back. John Winchester had literally given his life for Dean's, making a deal with a demon – his soul for Dean's life. Sam had been trying to get his older brother to open up about their father's death, knowing how much Dean blamed himself, but had only met a wall that Dean had constructed around his heart. Dean trying to hide his feelings wasn't unusual in itself, but the anger he'd displayed at Sam for trying to get past the wall was beginning to take its toll on their relationship. He'd actually gotten angry enough a few weeks ago to hit Sam because of it, and although he'd felt terrible about it afterward, even trying to get Sam to punch him back, they hadn't been the same since John's death.

Still, they had a job to do and neither brother was down and out enough to just give up on it. They did what they always did, had always done, and would always have to do – they coped. Sure, things were a little tense between them but they were still brothers, still cared a heck of a lot about each other, and still worked together like a finely tuned machine. If Sam didn't try to press Dean to talk about Dad, things were great. Sam, for one, knew that all of this was going to blow up in their faces sometime – probably soon – because even someone as stoic as Dean had their limits and his brother was already over his head here with their dad's death. He couldn't keep everything bottled up inside, couldn't keep pretending he was okay. He wasn't. And soon, everything was going to break and Sam had a feeling that they'd be picking up the pieces for a while. Until that happened, though, they were just going to cope.

Sam's attention was turned back to the present as Dean finished reading the article and pushed the computer back across the table. "Okay," he said dubiously, "so a guy drowned in a bog in the Louisiana wetlands. Not exactly newsworthy material, Sammy."

Sam shook his head and looked pointedly at the computer, where the article was clearly displayed. "Apparently it  _is_ , Dean."

Dean chuckled. "Not  _our_  kind of newsworthy, though. This kind of stuff happens all the time down there. It's Louisiana."

"Maybe," said Sam, "but I did some digging this morning before you got up."

Dean stared at him. "Dude, how long have you been awake? It's like… nine o'clock right now."

"That's the beauty of being a 'college boy', Dean. You get used to getting up  _early_." Dean ignored the little dig and just waited for Sam to finish. "After I got up and saw this article, I did some major research." He rustled the stack of papers in Dean's face.

Dean, for his part, looked torn between teasing Sam about being a geek and learning what he found. His curiosity won over. "What'dya find out?"

Sam's eyes scanned over the papers while he talked. "This isn't the first time this has happened." He flipped through the papers, settled on one, and went on. "There have been five other mysterious deaths in New Orleans over the past two weeks. All of them were deemed suicides. The first guy was named Riley Walker and he apparently jumped off a cliff in the middle of the night while his two-year-old daughter was asleep in her crib. The babysitter came by the next day to find the little girl screaming in her crib, alone, and called the police. They found his body at the bottom of a rocky ravine about two miles away from his house."

Dean rubbed his chin and motioned for Sam to had the paper over. Glancing at it, he muttered, "That's a little screwy, going to off yourself and leaving your kid all alone."

"Exactly," said Sam. "But there's more. Then there was, uh," he checked the papers again, "Karlie LaRae. Sixteen. She went out with some friends one night and didn't come back. They found her bags on the edge of a marsh and her body in the bog itself. They say it's suicide. Then Randy McClain, also drowns himself in the bog. Raymond Keith threw himself into a river at the bottom of a cliff. And now this guy – Carter LeGrange – apparently leaves his house in the middle of the night and jumps in a bog, killing himself. Six suicides, two weeks – and this isn't the first time it's happened, either."

He looked at Dean expectantly and Dean threw his hands in the air. "Alright, alright, Sammy. You've got me convinced. We'll check it out. When did it happen before?"

Sam checked his notes again. "Well, there was a string of suicides back, uh, in 1980 – fifteen people killed themselves over the span of three weeks. And in 1948, eight people committed suicide in one week. 1905, seventeen in a month. 1898 –  _twenty-five_  suicides in a month and a half. It probably goes on beyond that, but that was as deep as I was able to dig before you woke up demanding your breakfast."

Dean smirked. "You don't wanna be around me in the morning without my grub and Joe, Sammy. I was doing  _you_  a favor."

Sam chortled. "Gee, thanks, Dean. I'm so grateful you made me go out and buy your breakfast while you stayed here and nursed your big mug of coffee – the  _last_  cup, I might add – and–"

"Give it a rest, will ya, Sammy?" Dean smiled, wadding up the burrito wrapper and tossing it across the room into the trash can. Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's antics but didn't respond. Dean grinned. "So. New Orleans, huh?"

"Yep," Sam agreed, gathering up his research and getting up and stretching. "New Orleans."

* * *

Lilian LeGrange was sitting at her kitchen table, head in her hands, thinking about how she needed to get up and start sorting through the casseroles and desserts friends and family had brought by over the past several days. On top of the food, there was a heap of condolence cards lying on her coffee table, the laundry hadn't been done, and the living room was cluttered from having so many people in and out. She couldn't find it within herself to get up and do something, though – not yet. It had been three days since Carter had… passed away (she refused to say, even to herself, that he had committed the "s" word) and she hadn't found the motivation to do anything but sit and feel sorry for herself. And why shouldn't she? She thought furiously. She had lost so much.

She was wrapped up in her thoughts, wallowing freely in her agony, when a knock sounded at her door. She cursed, wondering why they couldn't leave her alone. First it had been the police, then reporters, and finally friends, family, and other do-gooders who just wanted to make sure  _she_  wasn't going to follow in her husband's footsteps after his death. Still, she rose to her feet, wiped the tears from her face, and answered the door.

Two young men stood there – both handsome, but she hardly noticed – in black suits and ties. She narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?" she asked suspiciously, ready to slam the door in their smug faces if this was another reporter's attempt to get her to talk about her husband.

In almost perfect synchronization, the two men reached into their coats and pulled out matching wallets with FBI badges. They flashed their badges briefly and the shorter one said, "I'm Agent Meyers, this is Agent Ramsey. FBI. We're here—"

She sighed heavily and saw the taller man cast her a sympathetic glance but they didn't back down. "I know why you're here."

"Great," Agent Meyers said cheerily, "that makes our job a whole lot easier. Can we come in?"

She nodded, pretending not to notice the withering look Agent Ramsey shot his associate and the subsequent "What?" mouthed back at him.

She may not be up to visitors, but be that as it may, it seemed like these two agents might very well be the most interesting people she'd seen all day.

* * *

Lilian LeGrange was beautiful, even without makeup and her hair pulled back into a lumpy, scraggly ponytail. She wore form-fitting jeans and a tan hoodie, her skin coffee-colored, eyes blue-grey, and hair dark brown. Her lips were full and eyes big and expressive, and Sam had a feeling that she would be even more beautiful if she hadn't been frowning and her eyes not filled with pain of her loss.

She and the two 'agents' sat around her cluttered kitchen table, the woman already having apologized for the mess. Dean was eyeing all the food lying around with a slightly longing expression and Sam had to fight not to smile. Even when trying to deal with their dad's death, Dean was still Dean – especially when it came to food and women, his two favorite things. "Mrs. LeGrange," Dean said, drawing Sam's attention back to their interview. "We're really sorry about your loss."

The woman put a hand over her mouth and struggled not to burst into tears and Sam reached across the table to put a comforting hand on her arm. "It's okay," he said softly. She nodded, tears threatening to spill over. When she had calmed considerably, Sam asked, "Can you tell us what happened?"

She took a shaky breath. "I already told this to the police," she said weakly.

"We know," Dean said, "but the FBI would like to hear it straight from the source."

She nodded again. "Like I told them, C-Carter had been acting strange all day." She fought to keep her voice steady. "He was d-distracted, you know, like he wasn't all there. Then, when it got d-dark, he started staring out of the window. I tried to see what he was looking at, but there w-was nothing there. When I asked him about it, he said something—" her voice broke, "—something about M-Melanie."

Sam and Dean exchanged glances. "Melanie?" Sam asked gently, wondering if this was another woman. If so, Mrs. LeGrange might not be as torn up about her husband's death as she seemed. At the woman's next words, however, Sam realized that they were way off base in their assumptions.

"Melanie, she was our daughter," the distraught widow hiccupped. "S-She had an accident when we were hiking through the woods."

Dean was staring intently at Lilian, the gears in his brain turning just as rapidly as Sam's. "What happened?" he asked, though both men were pretty sure of what was coming next. They were right.

"S-She wandered away from us. We tried to get to her in t-time, but she," Lilian sobbed, "she stumbled. Fell into the bog. She couldn't s-sw-swim, but even if you c-can, it's almost impossible to stay afloat in a b-bog. Too dense, you know?" Sam nodded compassionately.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. Almost as an afterthought, "How old was Melanie, Lilian, when she died?"

Lilian choked out her answer. "She was five years old."

There was a short, stunned silence. Dean eventually broke it by asking, "And you think your husband died because he couldn't take it anymore?"

Lilian shook her head. "You don't understand. It's been five years since Melanie drowned. We're still suffering, hell, I don't think we'll ever stop hurting, but we're… coping." Sam couldn't help but glance at his brother at Lilian's words but Dean apparently hadn't noticed any similarities between the two situations or was just too focused on what Lilian was saying. "We've been out of therapy for nearly four years now and our marriage was getting stronger,  _we_  were getting stronger. But before he died, he kept talking about Melanie, and when I asked him what he was looking at, he said, 'Doesn't she look beautiful today?'" She pressed a hand to her head. "I told him to come to bed, that he was tired and it was late. We went to bed and when I woke up the next morning… he was gone.

"I called the police and they – they found a trail leading from the backyard and through the woods - and it stopped right where the bog began. They found his b-body a few hours later at the bottom of the bog… perfectly preserved…"

Sam furrowed his brows. "But your husband had not even been dead for twenty-four hours, Mrs. LeGrange. He would have been preserved even if he hadn't been in a bog." Sam knew that the high levels of pete in bogs caused bodies to be preserved – there had been people found from hundreds of years looking like they'd just stepped in to take a swim the day before. But why Lilian found it such a miracle that Carter had been preserved was beyond him.

She shook her head. "No, I mean, his _expression_  was perfectly preserved. He didn't look scared, or sad, or even blank. Officer Meyers, my husband had an expression of pure joy and  _ecstasy_ on his face, even in death. It was like he'd died happier than he'd ever been in life." She looked from Sam to Dean curiously. "Why are you asking all these questions? Do you think that it might not have been…?"

Sam and Dean glanced at each other before Dean responded, "We're not sure. Just looking into it. We'll let you know if we have any more questions."

Lilian nodded, eyes wet. "All right."

Sam stopped at the door, turning back to the distraught woman. "It'll be alright, Lilian," he said softly. "Just… don't stop living. And don't keep everything inside, alright? Find a friend, talk to them. Trust me." Since his back was turned, he didn't see the way Dean, standing on the porch, stiffened at his words. He couldn't help but give the little advice he had to the suffering woman. She had obviously loved her husband very much and although she was no stranger to suffering – he couldn't imagine losing a little girl like that – he felt that it might do her good to hear these words. She sniffled, nodded, and even managed a grateful smile as Sam turned around and followed his brother out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

"What was all that about, exactly?" Dean snapped as he and his brother piled into the Impala, Dean in the driver's seat, Sam in the passenger's. Dean's tone was irritated and Sam looked genuinely confused.

Eyebrows drawing together, Sam asked, "What was  _what_  about, Dean?"

Dean started the car, pausing when the engine gave its rumbling, precursory roar. Dean was silent until they had pulled away from the LeGrange house and were cruising toward the main part of town. It was well after noon, the brothers hadn't had lunch yet, and they had noticed a small roadside diner on their way into town. It had been a long drive to Louisiana, broken up by a couple of gas stops and one night in a rundown, rather seedy motel in Georgia. Both were tired and beginning to grind on each other's nerves and Dean didn't so much as blink when his fond annoyance with Sam turned into defensive irritation at hearing Sam's words to Lilian.

Finally Dean spoke up, his voice tight but attempting to stay light. Annoyed as he was, he wasn't in the mood to get into it again with Sammy, especially about Dad, which, Dean knew, despite his reluctance to admit it, was what this was all about. "Oh, I dunno, Sammy, maybe that whole Dr. Phil, don't be afraid to talk about your feelings crap," he answered. "You trying to say something, Sam?"

Sam stared at Dean for a couple of seconds, then snorted as everything came into clear focus. "I was just trying to help."

Dean didn't look at Sam when he replied, "Who? Lilian or  _me_?"

Glaring, Sam ground out, " _Lilian_. Dean—"

Dean cut him off. "Sammy. Just forget about it."

"Hey, you're the one who brought it up, man, I—"

"Sam."

Sam didn't respond other than to make an impatient noise in his throat and turn away from Dean, resting his forehead against the cool window of the Impala.

Dean glanced over at his brother wearily, heart heavy. He hadn't actually meant to say anything to Sam about his comment to Lilian but when they had gotten into the car and he'd seen the brooding look on Sam's face, he lost it. Dean had known exactly what his brother was thinking about – Dad – and didn't appreciate him trying to send subliminal messages to Dean about how he needed to 'open his heart' and all that crap. Now, it seemed, Sam was hurt by Dean's response, still ticked that Dean wouldn't become a freaking pansy and talk about their father, and Dean was getting more agitated at Sam by the second – and he didn't want to be. Sam was all he had left now and he didn't like fighting.

But Dean was so,  _so_  sick of hearing about his dad, of being reminded of John Winchester, that he didn't care. If Sam was going to instigate a fight by preaching his so-called therapeutic message, then Dean would call him out on it. Sam would just have to realize that Dean wasn't going to gush about his feelings to anyone, even his own brother. There were some things that even the closest of friends had to deal with on their own.

Even if it was killing them inside.

* * *

Later that evening, after a spicy, classic New Orleans lunch of gumbo (and pie for Dean), the brothers checked into an obscure hotel on the edge of town, informing the skeptical hotel clerk that they wanted  _two_ single beds, not  _one_  king bed, thank you very much. Once in their room, the brothers started pulling out the information they'd gathered, ready to go over it again in light of their interview with Lilian. Both men studiously ignored the argument they'd had earlier and worked like it hadn't even happened, other than a small hint of tension lingering in the air between them.

"So what'dya think?" Dean asked from his seat across the table from Sam, once again shuffling through some information they had dug up at the library about the bogs before coming here. "Vengeful spirit? Maybe Melanie's father had something to do with her death, and she got revenge on him?"

Sam frowned, glaring moodily at the picture of the little girl he held in his hands. They had searched the newspaper archives in the library, finding the obituary from five years ago of little Melanie LeGrange. They'd made a copy of it to bring along with them, which Sam now held with a brooding expression on his face. "Yeah, maybe," he conceded, releasing the paper onto the table, where Dean picked it up, studying the seemingly innocent face of the girl. Melanie was cute, with coffee-colored skin, bright, happy blue eyes, black hair, and a smattering of freckles across her chubby cheeks. The report beside her picture spoke mournfully of how the child had gotten lost from her parents during a hike and drowned in the bog. Of course, an investigation had been launched but nothing had come up that deemed either parent intentionally responsible for their daughter's death.

Dean set the paper down and observed his younger brother through narrowed eyes. Sam was even more emo than usual today and Dean didn't think it had anything to do with their disagreement in the car. No, there was something else, something about this job, that was bothering him. "But…?"

At Dean's prompting, Sam looked up, surprised. "But what, Dean?"

"C'mon, Sammy, I know that look. You're thinking that this isn't just a straightforward salt-and-burn, am I right?"

Sam nodded slowly, gaze far off. "I mean,  _maybe_ , if it had just been Carter LeGrange who died. But we've got the other five suicides to think about, too. Why would the ghost of one girl go after five other people?"

Dean shrugged. "You get pissed off spirits killing people that invade their turf all the time. It's not that unusual."

"No," Sam agreed, "but it's not just been in the bog, has it? I mean, sure, three people've drowned in the bog, but three others jumped off a cliff. And they all died in different areas. Ghosts are supposed to be linked to the place they died, or to a cursed object. So why would Melanie be moving around killing people that had nothing to do with her death?"

Dean frowned. "What if they  _did_? How do we know that the other five weren't somehow involved with Melanie's death?"

Sam shrugged, still looking doubtful. "I guess we don't. So… what? You want to go talk to the families of the other victims, find out if they knew Melanie?"

Dean nodded. "I'll take two of'em, you can have the other three families."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Why do  _I_  have to take three?"

"Because," Dean grinned, scooping of the keys to the Impala and heading for the door, " _I'm_  going to check out the bar, too. You know how people like gossip, Sammy."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Always thinking about  _work_ ," he commented sarcastically.

"Well you know what they say," Dean countered cheerily, the previous argument all but forgotten now that they were getting into the job. "All work and no play makes  _Sam_  a very dull boy."

* * *

"So, Ms. Jacobson," Sam said, sitting rather uncomfortably on an overly plush, bubblegum pink sofa across the living room from the first victim, Riley Walker's, babysitter. She was an older woman, in her early sixties, with a strong southern accent, a poof of fiery red hair perched precariously on top of her head, and more makeup slathered on her aging face than a clown. She batted her mascara-clumped eyelashes in what she must have assumed was an alluring manner, almost predatory gaze locked on Sam's face.

"Call me  _Delilah_ , doll," the woman breathed, her voice cracking from years of smoking. " _Ms. Jacobson_ sounds so…  _formal_."

Sam's lips twitched in what he hoped was a professional enough smile and reminded her, "This  _is_  a formal visit, ma'am." He wanted to add that it was illegal to try and seduce the questioning FBI agent but he wasn't sure it was an actual law and didn't know how savvy the woman was on this aspect of the law. Instead, he simply plowed on, mentally cursing Dean for opting to question Karlie LaRae's and Raymond Keith's respective family, leaving him with the flirtatious old babysitter as the first on his list. "Ms. Jacobson, when was the last time you spoke to Mr. Walker before he passed away?"

The woman seemed disappointed that he wasn't the least bit interested in playing her game, but she conceded, even as she sighed heavily at Sam's lack of interest. "Well, let's see, Agent Ramsey," she mused, her two-inch long earrings jingling wildly with every thoughtful shake of her head. "I talked to him the evening he died, actually, to see if I would need to come over to get Laura earlier the next day. Riley often leaves for work early, you know, so that he can stop by the cemetery on his way there. Poor soul feels  _terrible_ about what happened last year." Her voice automatically became hushed and excited, indicating that she was getting ready to do some major gossiping.

Sam leaned forward instinctively, hoping to hear something that would shed some light on this odd situation, but apparently the old bird thought it was a cue that he was interested. "Oh, Agent  _Ramsey_ ," she nearly cooed, "I  _knew_  you'd come around!"

Sam instantly sat back, desperately trying to keep his face from flushing crimson, and asked, "Ms. Jacobson, _who_  did Mr. Walker visit before work?"

Still leaning slightly forward, Ms. Jacobson answered, "Why, his wife, Agent Ramsey. Michelle. She died going on a year ago and lord knows that poor man blamed himself."

Sam racked his memory for the way Walker had killed himself. Right, he'd jumped off a cliff. So, did that mean…?

"She didn't happen to die on a cliff, did she? Fall or… jump?"

The question took the older woman aback. "Michelle? No, heaven's no. She was killed in a hit-and-run. Wasn't anything Riley could've done about it, though, she was walking home from the market and some drunk hooligan ran her down and drove off like the devil himself was on his tail." She shook her head slowly, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. "Riley said he shouldn't've let her go out alone, should've walked with her. Their car was in the garage, you see."

Sam's brow furrowed even more. This made even less sense now. Even if Mrs. Walker's ghost somehow blamed her husband for her death, why would she get revenge by throwing him off of a cliff? Why not run him over with a phantom car in the street? And would a mother, even a ghost mother, really leave her child an orphan just to get some petty revenge? Unless this didn't have anything to do with Michelle's death at all, but with the LeGrange's daughter, which didn't make sense, either, but it was all they had.

"Ms. Johnson, you don't happen to know if Mr. Walker had any association with the LeGrange family, do you?" he asked, wishing fervently that she'd stop looking at him with that dreamy, almost hungry, look in her eyes.

"Oh, no, dear, the Walkers were a real quiet family, didn't get out much. I doubt they knew any of their neighbors, let alone a family all the way across town."

"But  _you_ know of them?"

"Why, yes, of course. That poor man killed himself after his daughter's death; it was all over the newspapers." She squinted across the room at Sam, eyes alight with curiosity. "Why? Do you think they're connected, Agent Ramsey?"

Sam shrugged, thoughts far away. He was baffled. Maybe the two cases had nothing to do with each other. Maybe this wasn't supernatural and Riley Walker  _had_  killed himself out of grief. It had only been a year since his wife's death. But why would he do it in the middle of the night, leaving his daughter alone in their house? Unless he'd completely cracked or had never been Father of the Year material, it didn't make sense.

Nothing did.

He stood up to leave, his hostess rising with him, a sad expression on her face. Sam had a feeling that this had less to do with the depressing topics they had been discussing and more to do with the fact that 'Angent Ramsey' was about to leave. Sam, on the other hand, couldn't be more delighted that he had finished his interview. "One more question," he asked quickly, more out of curiosity than anything, and Ms. Jacobson perked up a bit. "Who is taking care of his daughter, now that he's gone?" He really hoped this old woman wasn't; not that she wasn't nice in her own way, but Sam couldn't imagine having to spend more time with her than was absolutely necessary and would  _not_  want to have been raised by such a person.

"His sister, I believe," Ms. Jacobson replied. "Why?"

"Just making sure the child is in good hands," Sam replied, ducking subtly out of the way of the woman's wrinkly hand as it rose to touch his arm. "Thank you, ma'am, for your time."

Sam practically ran out of the door, ready to kill Dean, even if his brother hadn't known he'd be left alone with a sixty-year-old with eyes for men more than half her age. It wasn't an experience he was going to forgive easily, that was for sure.

With a heavy heart, even more confused than when he had knocked on the babysitter's door, Sam turned and walked away from the house, ready to go to the next address and talk to the families of Randy McClain and Deserea Marion, two other suicide victims. He stopped in his tracks, though, as a familiar form caught his eye on the sidewalk outside of the house. Standing in front of him, wearing the crisp, baby-blue dress she'd been buried in, blonde hair cascading down her shoulders, and eyes watching him joyously, was Jess. Sam's heart nearly stopped at seeing her face again, beautiful and happy. He watched as she winked at him, tilting her head fractionally toward alley between two buildings, as if she wanted him to follow her.

Sam only hesitated for a moment before she started to walk away, threatening to leave him forever, and Sam couldn't have that. Mind clouded over with desire, pain, love, and guilt, Sam found himself walking the way she had gone, unable, it seemed, to control his own body. All he could think about was Jessica, and how he was going to get to hold her again, apologize for what had happened to her.

They would finally be together again – forever.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a few blocks later when Sam finally caught up to the blonde girl wearing the baby blue dress. His heart was pounding wildly in his chest, his mind trying feebly to remind him that Jessica was  _dead_  and he should stop and  _think_  for a moment, but his heart, it seemed, was in control of his feet. Consequently, the rational part of his brain was overruled and he continued to follow her even though she couldn't possibly be here, alive.

When he had caught up with her, it was because she had stopped rather abruptly. Sam could only see the back of her, her long, wavy blonde hair cascading down her back in rivulets. With a shaking hand, he reached out to touch her lightly on the shoulder and –

"What the  _hell_  are you doing?" an unfamiliar voice snapped at him as the girl turned around. Sam started at her dumbly. She was wearing a blue dress that was similar to the one Jess had been buried in, but it wasn't identical. She also had blonde hair, long and curly, but that was where the similarities ended. She was pretty, he supposed, with blue eyes, a small, slightly turned up nose, and thin lips. He supposed that from a distance, it was  _possible_ that she could be mistaken for his late girlfriend. Possible – but not likely.

"I  _said,_  what are you doing?" the girl spat again, shrugging her shoulder from his light grip as Sam gaped, trying to figure out what had happened. People on the street were beginning to stare and Sam snapped out of it, withdrawing his hand.

"Uh, um, sorry," he managed as the girl rolled her eyes.

"You've been following me for four blocks; what are you, some kind of creep?" Sam realized by her tone that she was nervous and her anxiety was being portrayed as anger.

"No, really, I… I thought you were someone else." Sam figured that he must look pretty shaken, too, because the few bystanders shot him varied degrees of sympathetic looks (most of them reading as "Oh dear, how embarrassing for him; sure glad  _I_ don't look that stupid!") and walked away. The girl, a few years younger than Jess had been, narrowed her eyes suspiciously before turning and continuing on her way.

Sam remained where he was standing, mind racing, heart pounding, and scolded himself for getting so shaken by the incident. After a few minutes, he'd calmed down considerably, wondering why he'd followed a girl that had mildly resembled Jess when he knew full well that she was dead – had been for over a year now.

He shook his head slightly, trying to shrug off the weird happening, and muttered, "Coulda sworn..." His mind now mostly back on the case, Sam propelled himself into motion once more, heading back in the direction he'd come from. He still had two more people to interview before meeting Dean at the bar.

By the time he'd talked to the families of Karlie LaRae and Randy McClain, respectively, he'd all but pushed the incident out of his mind because of the new and unusual information he'd uncovered. And when he met his brother at the local bar and exchanged stories, he'd all but forgotten about it in light of their investigation, and didn't mention it to Dean at all.

* * *

Dean Winchester frowned as he took a swig of his second drink. He was sitting at a small but tall table near the corner of the local bar, perched on a spindly old barstool that he had been surprised but pleased to find wasn't nearly as fragile as it looked. He had considered getting some of the bar's gumbo – Louisiana was great! – but had decided to wait until Sam decided to arrive and get them both something.

In front of the hunter was a manila folder with the files on the two suicide victims – closed, just in case some nosy stranger decided to sneak a peek into 'official' FBI business – and a small notebook he had scribbled some notes in, opened to the third page. He'd gotten to the bar about half an hour ago, had waited for Sam at the actual bar for about half of that time, and then decided he may as well get a couple of drinks and look over his findings while he was waiting for his little brother to take his time. He was reading over his notes for the fifth or sixth time and was still at a loss. John's journal was in the Impala, tucked away in the locked dash, and Dean had thought about grabbing it but hadn't acted on it yet.

There was a chipper little  _ding!_  as someone entered the bar and Dean didn't even have to look up to know it was Sam. A few minutes later, his brother sat down heavily across from Dean, set two bowls of gumbo on the table, and said, "So."

Dean finally looked up from the notebook as Sam shoved one bowl of gumbo in Dean's direction. "Aw, Sam, how did you know?" Dean teased in a simpering voice as he pulled the food the rest of the way toward himself.

Sam smirked. "No matter how many monsters, ghosts, and demons we hunt, no matter where we go, one thing will never change –"

"Your unfailing adoration and servitude for your beloved older brother?" Dean supplied, grinning as his brother snorted.

"—your appetite," Sam finished firmly.

Dean made a face, not bothering to deny the truth. Instead he opted for his favorite comeback. "Bitch."

"Jerk."

There was a beat, then Sam was back to business. "Dude, whatever it is we're after, I've not seen anything like it; this is… weird."

"If it's even one thing at all," Dean added. "It's like we've hit ghost-haunt central here. I mean, everyone I've talked to has said that their dead family member had, at one point, lost someone very close to them."

Sam nodded, his lips pursed in thought. "Same here. But it's weird – I talked to the babysitter for the Walker guy, and it had been a year since his wife had died. But she  _didn't_  die jumping from a cliff, but in a hit-and-run, and even though Walker blamed himself, it was an accident that had  _nothing_  to do with how  _he_ committed suicide."

"Maybe he just couldn't cope," Dean said. "Doesn't sound like there'd be a connection. I would say it's a coincidence, but…"

"I take it your interviews were just as strange," Sam said, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, finally opting to take a bite of his gumbo. Sam watched, barely containing a smirk, as Dean's eyes went wide and beads of sweat appeared on his face.

"What's the matter, tough guy? Louisiana gumbo too hot for you?"

Dean gave Sam an evil look before swallowing and washing it down with the rest of his beer. "Dammit, Sam," he rasped, obviously more embarrassed than annoyed, "we're supposed to be working a job here, show some professionalism!"

Sam's eyebrows rose again. "…Says the guy who just finished his second beer and is about to get up for his third as we work a case."

Dean, who was halfway out of his chair, quickly sat back down just to prove his brother wrong. "Am not." A pause as Dean tried to regain his cool, and then, "So your other stories were along the same lines as the babysitter's, huh?"

Sam nodded and Dean couldn't help but notice that his brother seemed to become a bit ruffled at Dean's mention of the babysitter. Grinning widely, Dean said, "Was she hot? Did Sammy get a date?"

Sam's quick change of subject was enough to reassure Dean that he needed to find out more about what had happened at this Delilah Johnson's house, because if the bright red of Sam's face said anything, it was that whatever he found out could be blackmail and teasing fuel for a long time to come…

* * *

_6 deaths in 2 weeks. Suicides? Has happened many times in the past. No discernible pattern._

_LeGrange – most recent – saw daughter before he died. Avenging spirit? Died… happy?_

_None of the victims knew the others personally. All deaths in family within last 5-10 years. Some felt guilty, others didn't. None directly responsible for family/friends death._

_All looked at peace/joyful/ecstatic._

_Ghosts? - why a sudden outbreak of angry spirits? And why act now instead of right after death? How can they move around and why aren't 'suicides' connected? NOT typical ghost behavior!_

_Ghouls? – need a body to feed on, no reports of missing corpses?_

_4/6 victims cremated – check out graves, burn & salt just in case tonight, special/cursed items holding them here – none so far_

_Demons? –Definitely not, can't possess a rotted corpse, and why the guilt factor?_

_*find out why Sam squirms every time his babysitter friend's name comes up_

Sam looked up from where he was reading over the notes Dean had just helped him compile so that they could get a bigger picture. Sam's eyes rolled in exasperation. "Really, Dean?"

"I'll bet she was a cougar. Is that it, Sammy? That's it, isn't it? HA!"

Sam knew that the bright red of his face had given him away but that didn't stop him from adamantly denying it, or, when Dean had to leave the table to make a bathroom trip, from getting some killer, ultra-hot sauce and dousing Dean's remaining bites of gumbo with the stuff. Sam could have sworn that when it made contact with the food, it sizzled a bit.

When Dean returned and took a huge bite out of his food, Sam was not disappointed in the slightest by the result, which included a quick and quite ungraceful leap off of the barstool, a string of swear words under his breath that Sam would have  _never_  thought to use together, and Dean's empty cup thrown at his head. Then Dean had grinned as Sam rubbed his head and said, "Thanks, Sammy. That bland crap needed some flavor."

_Liar._

When they left the bar a few minutes later, Dean with a still burning tongue and Sam with an aching forehead, they were still no closer to figuring out the connection between the victims, if it was one ghost or many, or if it even  _was_ a ghost, or… It made Sam's head hurt to think about it. It just didn't make sense. They returned to the hotel with a plan to go over their notes – again, just to make sure they didn't miss something – and look through their father's old journal before it got dark. Then, it would be the graveyard shift for the Winchester brothers – literally.

But even though they were going about this like a normal case, something in Sam's gut told him that this was something they had never come up against, something much bigger, perhaps, than a 'normal' case.


	5. Chapter 5

The moon hung high in the sky, partially hidden behind the cover of a couple of wispy clouds. The graveyard was silent and eerie, the marble tombstones glowing ethereally in the haunting moonlight. Large, twisted trees grew inside of the wrought-iron fence, the gnarled roots dancing around the graves and dipping in and out of the earth. Spanish moss hung in clumps from the branches, swaying with the leaves to the nearly-silent tune of the slight breeze. Somewhere, a bird called out, the sound echoing strangely across the deserted field. Silence reigned once more.

The quiet was suddenly cut by the sound of a powerful engine approaching, the low purr of the motor causing a small flock of birds to take off from the branches of the graveyard's trees. Dean steered the Impala through the graveyard, parking on the path between two large trees so the car, already as black as the night, would be all but invisible from the main road just in case somebody fancied a midnight drive past an old and creepy graveyard. He and Sam piled out of the car, grabbed their supplies from the trunk, and trekked off in search of the first grave. Sam's flashlight bounced from tombstone to tombstone as Dean juggled a couple of guns and a shovel. Sam's flashlight was clenched tightly in his hand; he had a bad feeling about this place, which was saying something because he couldn't remember a time when a graveyard  _didn't_ give him the chills.

The grave they were looking for was Lydia McClain, the late sister of one of the bog victims. She had passed away two years ago from cancer, Randy had been her twin brother, and they had been amazingly close. According to their mother, whom Dean had interviewed, one of the last things Lydia had told her brother before her passing was that none of this was his fault, that no one could control the illness, and that she was grateful for every moment they spent together. As wonderful and heartfelt as that sounded, it was still quite suspicious that Randy McClain had apparently been chasing after his dead twin when he took a swim in the marshlands. Lydia was one of the few of the apparitions whose body hadn't been cremated, so the Winchesters were finally back in familiar territory with a routine salt and burn.

"Here it is," Sam whispered, smiling grimly as the beam of his flashlight fell upon Lydia's headstone. "You ready?"

"Let's do this," Dean agreed, tossing one of the salt-loaded guns to Sam before holding out the shovel. "You did first; I'll keep watch."

Sam made a face but swapped his light for the shovel. "Why do I have to dig first?" he moaned petulantly even as he made the first crack in the earth with the shovel.

Dean grinned. "Because you're the youngest."

"You keep saying that," Sam grunted as a pile of dirt was flung over his shoulder, "but I think you're just too much of a pansy to get your hands dirty— and  _no_ , Dean," he smirked as his brother indignantly opened his mouth, presumably to say something very uncalled for, "don't even go there."

"Go where?" Dean asked innocently.

Sam glared. "Lord knows where," he muttered irritably. "With you, I've come to realize that  _nowhere_  is out of bounds. Now shut up and gimme some light, will you?"

Dean rolled his eyes and adjusted his grip on the flashlight, grinning at how much fun it was to wind up his little brother but opting to remain quiet so that Sam could concentrate on digging and they could get this done as soon as possible. They still had another grave to check after this. Sam dug in silence, the hole in the earth growing deeper as the pile of dirt beside the grave swelled with each shovelful of dirt. Dean kept an eye out for anything, supernatural or otherwise, while simultaneously shining the light in Sam's direction and positioning his free hand on the gun in his belt, ready to be drawn and fired in a moment's notice.

Finally, after Sam's shirt was sticking to his broad back with sweat in the humid Louisiana night and the grave was about halfway dug, Dean offered to take over with a brisk "get out of the way, slowpoke" and Sam gratefully took over watch duty. The minutes ticked by and with each passing moment, Sam felt the eerie feeling that something was going to go wrong grow ever stronger. His long fingers tightened instinctively around his gun as his eyes darted expertly around, looking for any sign of trouble. Once, he thought he saw a flash of baby blue darting behind a tree, but when the light hit it, there was nothing there.

Dean, irritated that his light source had disappeared, griped at Sam for a few minutes about how he sucked at holding flashlights, and kept digging. Finally, the wooden, faded coffin lid was exposed and Dean used the shovel to break through the lid. The musty smell of death and decay exploded with the onslaught of dust, which cleared to reveal the skeleton of Ms. Lydia McClain. Dean tossed the shovel down, dusted his filthy hands together, and said, "Let's light this sucker."

Sam nodded and strode forward, salt and gasoline in hand, when the air suddenly went icy around them. Dean cursed, his gun instantly out at the ominous signs of a spirit lurking around them. Sam didn't draw his gun considering his hands were full, but he remained on alert regardless. A horrible chill spread down his spine and the young man spun on the spot to find the ghost of Lydia McClain staring back at him.

She was pretty enough, he supposed, if she'd been alive and not ready to kill them. Her thin hair hung limply to her shoulders, her eyes tired and almost resigned. It occurred to Sam that she didn't exactly look dangerous _or_  ready to kill, but that didn't mean anything. This spirit had lured her brother to his death and would just as easily kill Sam and Dean.

Dean had turned around as well, gun aimed at the apparition which made no move to disappear or attack or anything that most ghosts tended to do when their graves were dug up. Instead, she spoke, her voice seeming to vibrate through the night, rooting the brothers to the spot.  _Why are you here?_  she asked.  _Why did you upset my rest? Why would you defile my grave? I have done nothing._

"Oh, yeah?" Dean snorted, obviously not buying it. "Tell that to your brother; you lured him to his death, after all."

The wail that emanated from the spirit was low, mournful, and keening, renting through the night like nothing either boy had ever heard. This, Sam would reflect later, might be what it sounded like when a heart broke. The ghost screeched again.  _YOU'RE LYING!_  she cried.  _Randy's not gone… my brother… my brother…_

"Are you saying you  _didn't_ kill him?" Sam asked dubiously. For the first time, Lydia showed anger, and she appeared in front of Sam, fire in her eyes.

 _How DARE you?_  she screamed. With a yell of rage, she sent Sam flying across the graveyard. He landed, quite by chance, where his head smacked into the corner of a large marble headstone. There was an ear-splitting  _crack_  as his head made contact with the stone. He didn't get up.

" _SAM!_ " Dean grunted as he shot his gun, the salt hitting the distressed spirit. She screamed, dispersed into the air, but Dean knew she wouldn't be gone for long. He cast a quick, anxious look at the limp form of his younger brother several yards away, grimacing. As much as he wanted to go to Sam's side right now, he knew he had to salt'n'burn this pyscho chick's bones before she did any further damage. He dove for the gasoline and salt where Sam had dropped them before he'd gone flying. Just as he grabbed them and was sprinting toward the grave, Lydia reappeared, the angry rage gone from her dead eyes, replaced by pure sadness.

 _I'm sorry,_  she lamented as she reappeared in front of the eldest Winchester, blocking his way to her remains.  _I didn't mean… but I never… I wouldn't… my BROTHER!_  Dean blinked, slightly caught off guard by this strange behavior.  _You have to listen to me!_  Lydia tried again.  _There's something else out there, something_ powerful _… I didn't lure Randy to his death, I'd never… I wanted him to live on… please… he's my brother._

Dean was in a bit of shock at the heartfelt, albeit disjointed, speech, and felt something like a pang of almost… sympathy inside him. Still, with a glance at Sammy's still unmoving body, he felt cold anger take over his body and his hands acted of their own accord. Ducking around the spirit, he tossed salt into the grave, followed by gasoline and his lighter. "Sorry," he said as both the bones and the spirit of Lydia McClain burned simultaneously, and he was surprised to find that he meant it. "Can't take any chances." The shadows on his face flickering from the firelight, he glared as the last of Lydia's cries died in the night. "You shoulda left Sammy alone."

Then he turned on his heel and ran for his brother.

* * *

When Sam woke up, it was to a throbbing headache and a churning stomach. It didn't help that he seemed to be moving at a fast speed. There was a slight vibration and growl of a motor and he realized he was in a car. _The_  car. Dean's baby. The 'Pala. That was good, wasn't it? Sam thought so, although he could barely string two words together in his screaming mind. Something wet and sticky tickled the back of his neck and he wondered what Dean had poured on his head this time. Sam really wished his brother would lay off the prank wars.

"Sammy? You awake?" At the sound of Dean's worried voice, Sam realized that there was more going on than he originally thought. His eyes fluttered open as he desperately tried to show Dean that he was okay, but the moment they opened to the glare of someone's oncoming headlights as they drove into town, the pain spiked to new levels in his head and he realized something very unpleasant.

"D'n," he grunted from behind tightly gritted teeth. "'M g'na be…"

Dean got the message and slammed on the brakes just as Sam threw open the door and fell out onto the dewy grass of the shoulder, the cold moisture instantly soaking his hands and knees. Dean didn't say a word as his brother was violently ill, everything he'd eaten that day gone for good. Instead, he waited until Sam had fallen back onto his haunches, panting and wiping his mouth, and then walked around the car to help his concussed brother to his feet. As he was folded into the passenger seat of the car by his older brother, Sam couldn't help but notice that there were four Dean's looking concerned, hovering just above him. He could dimly hear one of the Deans saying something about a concussion, not sleeping, and "that damn ghost" before he drifted off, oblivious to Dean's attempt to rouse him once more.


	6. Chapter 6

Back at the motel, Dean helped his concussed brother out of the Impala and guided him as gently as he could into the room and onto one of the unmade twin beds. Sam groaned as he was moved but didn't resist, which was good, because Sam was bigger than his older brother and Dean could barely support him when he was being cooperative. "Alright, Sammy, you're alright, just stay with me…" Dean realized that he'd been murmuring to his brother almost nonstop since their unplanned "pit stop" on the side of the road. Worry had nested in his chest, but he knew that a hospital would be out of the question at this point. Both men were muddy from their jackets to the tips of their boots and really had no cover story to explain why they had been out playing in the mud in the middle of the night, and although Dean figured he could think up a decent cover on the spot if need be, he felt he could take care of Sam better at the motel than a hospital.

Not to mention Dean hadn't set foot in a hospital since his father had traded his life for Dean's in one. Not that John Winchester's death had anything to do with Dean's decision to take Sam here. Not at all.

"Okay, Sam, can you hear me?" Dean asked, eyebrows knitting together in concern at the paleness of his brother's face and the pained glaze in his half-open eyes.

"Mmmm…" Sam muttered. "What hap'nd?" he asked blearily. "Didja burn her?"

Dean realized that Sam was talking about Lilian's ghost, and wondered if his younger brother had heard anything she had said about her brother after she'd knocked Sam out. When he replied, "'Course I did, Sam, what kind of hunter leaves a graveyard without ganking at least one spirit?" and Sam's response was a sleepy, "Good," he decided that Sam had been out cold during the ghost's final pleas. Otherwise, his pansy of a brother would probably start talking about feelings and crap, saying that Dean should have heard her out instead of burning her bones on the spot. And Dean  _really_  wasn't in the mood to hear it from Sam, considering he wasn't even sure he'd done the right thing in not hearing her out. It was a rare day when Dean Winchester was unsure of himself when it came to hunting ghosts, so he didn't need Sam's conscience messing with his head as well.

Noting that Sam had drifted off into a not-quite-sleep but not-quite-aware state, Dean quickly set to work, cleaning and bandaging the head wound. It didn't need more than a couple of stitches, which was good, considering they were nearly out of fishing line. He then woke Sam up again and settled in for a long night of periodic little-brother waking, knowing that with a severe concussion, there was every possibility that the next time Sam fell asleep, he might not wake up.

* * *

Bobby Singer scowled at the phone in his hand as he debated whether to dial or not. He hadn't heard from those boys since the quick phone call from Sam several days ago informing him that he and Dean were following a lead somewhere in Louisiana but would drop by sometime for some down time after they'd taken care of the ghost problem. He'd assured Bobby that it was going to be a simple salt'n'burn and that Dean hadn't even wanted him to call at all because they'd be done in no time. Bobby hadn't fretted or protested, or given their case that much thought, actually. He knew Sam and Dean were big boys and even though they let their emotions get in their way when it came to each other, they were fully capable of handling a vengeful spirit in the bayou. But still…

Something wasn't setting right with the seasoned hunter. Maybe it was because his old friend, John Winchester, had recently passed, or because Bobby was becoming sentimental in his old age, but he was beginning to be a bit concerned that neither Winchester boy had called him about the job. He knew they'd been gone for a little under a week, but a simple vengeful spirit job usually took a couple of days at the most. Any longer would mean there were complications – which, with those two idgets, there usually were – and they'd be calling up old cranky "Uncle" Bobby to hit the books and find out what this S.O.B. was and what it was up to.

So why hadn't he heard anything? If not from Dean, then at least a message from Sam, asking for advice or info on whatever they were hunting? Bobby had a nasty feeling snaking through his gut, and although he was usually one to listen to instinct, he didn't want to call the boys to check up on them. Even though they were boys in his mind, they were actually two very capable young men – though he'd never tell them that – that could handle themselves on a job. With that thought, Bobby shook his head at his inner mother hen that had been rearing its ugly head for the past couple of days and hung up the phone.

If Sam or Dean needed him, they'd call. Until then, there was a bottle of whisky in the fridge that was calling his name.

.

Sam woke up with a pounding headache. He was sore all over, but his head was definitely hurting more than anything else. He groaned, rolled over, and managed to sit up before the nausea hit him. He gasped and was about to dart for the bathroom when his head was shoved between his knees and someone's hand was on his shoulder, steadying him.

"Calm down, Sammy," came his big brother's comforting voice. "Breathe. You puke on my boots again, and your ass will pay. Got that." Okay, so maybe not  _that_  comforting, but the concern was still there.

"Jerk," Sam snapped once his breathing had slowed down and the nausea had subsided. He sat up slowly to glare at his brother, who looked quite pleased that Sam was up and (nearly) about again.

"Bitch," was Dean's customary reply, and he grinned when he saw a small smile tug at Sam's dry lips. "How ya feeling, Sam?"

Sam sucked in a calming lungful of air before responding. "Well… I can honestly say that I haven't had a concussion that bad in… wow, a couple of months at least. How long was I out for, anyway?"

"You've been… ah… incapacitated for about two and a half days now. I spent the first day and a half keeping your stubborn ass awake, but you started to look better after a while, so I let you sleep. I've been keeping an eye on the local news, though. No more mysterious suicides since you got attacked. So maybe it's stopped."

Sam frowned. "Yeah, maybe."

"But you don't think so." Dean rolled his eyes.

"It's just… I can see how it'd make sense for Lydia to lure her brother to his death, but what about those other people? They saw the people they loved before they died, not Lydia's ghost. And what grudge would this one woman have against all these other, unconnected people, anyway?"

"I don't know, but—"

Dean was cut off as the police scanner went off, the voice on the radio requesting for an ambulance and backup at a cliff about five miles away. Around the same time, Sam's phone rang and he grabbed it from the end table, answered, listened to the other line, and then said, "Okay, we'll be there."

Dean turned and raised his eyebrows to his still woozy brother. "We'll be  _where_ , exactly, Sam? You're not exactly fit to go tromping around after vengeful spirits!"

"I'm fine, Dean. Listen: That was the police station. It seems there's been another suicide attempt and the police are finally ready to admit that they may be out of their depth here and that something more  _may_  be going on. They actually  _want_  the FBI to look into it."

"Attempt? But that means…"

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "They survived the jump and although they are in the local hospital, it's expected they'll make a full recovery."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Dean almost crowed. "Let's do this. We might finally have our lead, Sammy!"

"It's Sam," Sam reminded his brother only half-heartedly as he stood on wobbly legs and followed his brother out of the motel room and to the Impala.

Perhaps things were finally making a turn for the better.


	7. Chapter 7

The hospital was small compared to some that the Winchesters had visited. The latest victim, a forty-seven-year-old Mr. Clyde Donavan, was awake but hardly lucid. According to the doctor treating him, he was suffering from a broken leg, three broken ribs, a shattered right arm, and a huge headache. As far as the scans and x-rays had shown, he wouldn't have any permanent brain damage and the dazed state he was in was more due to the pain medication than anything else. Despite this, Sam and Dean were determined that they were going to learn  _something_  from this man, because it was not often that a spirit left anyone alive, accidentally or not. There was also the possibility that it might return and try to finish the job. There were just so many unknown factors in this case; everything was up in the air at this point and they needed answers  _fast_.

Clyde Donavan's daughter, a gorgeous young woman with waist-length black hair, intense blue eyes, and light brown skin, refused to leave her father's bedside while the "FBI agents" tried to talk to him. She introduced herself as Caleigh Donavan, and eyed Sam and Dean with suspicion.

"Since when is attempted suicide a matter for the FBI?" she asked in her drawling Louisiana accent.

"Well, Ms. Donavan," said Dean, as he reluctantly stopped gaping at this southern belle beauty and tried to portray a bit of faked professionalism, "the FBI is concerned about the number of suicides in the general area. We're just following protocol, checking to make sure everything's okay. It's probably nothing." At Dean's choice of wording, Sam elbowed him in the side, subtly but none-too-gently.

Caleigh's eyes narrowed. "Are you implying that my father's near-death is  _nothing_?" she hissed.

"No, Ma'am, not at all," Sam quickly reassured her. "My partner just meant that it's probably not anything more than what it seems."

"But there's a possibility that it was an attempted murder?" Caleigh's eyes widened with a bit of hope. "Maybe he didn't try to kill himself after all!"

"…Course not," Clyde Donavan mumbled blearily from his bed. "She just wanted me to go with her, that's all. And we would be together. She wanted…" He sighed and fell asleep.

Sam glanced at the machines attached to the patient. "Uh, is he—?"

"The doctor said he'll be in and out of it," Caleigh assured him. "He's okay."

"Right," said Dean. "Since your father is currently… unavailable, we'll have to ask you the questions instead."

Caleigh frowned dubiously at the Winchesters before finally shrugging and sitting in one of the visitor chairs, gesturing for her guests to do the same. Unfortunately, there was only one other seat available, and there was a quick and silent, but intense, glaring contest as the brothers vied for the seat. Dean claimed the prize, making a show of sitting comfortably in the horribly uncomfortable plastic seat, just to tick Sam off. It worked.

Still smirking slightly, Dean turned to Caleigh, who looked even more doubtful than before. "Have there been any recent… or even not-so-recent… deaths in the family? Or of close friends? Is there any reason your father would have tried to take his own life?"

Caleigh shook her head. "No, nothin'. Dad doesn't have many friends anyway; he travels for his job and doesn't really keep in touch with anyone. He's an only child, and my grandparents are alive and well upstate. He's been stayin' with me for a while, ever since…" She paused, biting her lip.

"Since what?" Sam prodded, and Caleigh sighed.

"Since Mom left. She ran off with another man, some business executive from up north or somethin'. Soon as Dad found out, he had a bit of a breakdown. He was crazy over her, and she dumped him like he was nothin'."

"I'm sorry," said Sam.

"Oh, don't be. She was a curse, to him and to me. I was glad to see her go, but Dad… well, he could never see how she was bringin' him down. I just wish he hadn't gone off the deep end, y'know?"

"What was your father talking about, before, do you know? Saying that someone wanted him to come with her?" Sam wondered.

Caleigh frowned. "It was really weird. When they had him loaded in the ambulance, Dad woke up and started talkin'. He said Mom came to him, and she wanted him back, so he followed her. Right off the edge of the cliff, apparently. But he was concussed. Delusional. Mom called a couple of hours ago, wantin' to make sure this incident wouldn't affect her court dates."

Sam and Dean exchanged startled looks. "Are you  _sure_ he said it was your mom?" Dean pressed. "Not someone else?"

"I told you what happened," Caleigh insisted. "Or what he  _said_  happened, anyway.  
Remember, he  _did_  hit his head. And Mom's all the way in Michigan with her new boyfriend. Couldn't've been her, though I wouldn't put somethin' like that past her." She rolled her eyes.

Flummoxed, the Winchesters did their best to give her reassuring smiles. "Everything will be alright, Ms. Donavan," said Dean. "We'll let you know if anything more develops. And… if he wakes up, or you learn something else, or if you need anyone to comfort you during this  _terrible_ time…" He gave her his most alluring grin and handed her a card with his cell number on it. "Call me."

Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes, but Caleigh looked mildly interested. She took the card and managed a small smile and even a wink. "Sure thing. And thanks."

* * *

"Dude, this makes absolutely  _no_  sense," Sam complained as the brothers piled into the Impala. "I mean, ghosts luring people to their doom, sure. But this was no ghost. The lady is alive, but somehow she managed to pop down from the other side of the country and convinced her ex-husband to jump off a cliff. What the hell?"

"Well, we know one thing," Dean mused.

"What?" Sam snapped over the sound of the engine, which purred as Dean steered his Baby out of the parking lot and onto the road.

"If this latest jumper has anything to do with the other suicides, then whatever's doing this isn't just a bunch of vengeful spirits."

"You're saying that one…  _thing_ … could be behind all of this?" Sam ventured. "Something that can mimic the dead, rather than a handful of ghosts ganking their living family and friends? But what can do that?"

"Shape-shifter?" Dean suggested.

Sam shrugged. "Dunno. Since when have we seen shifters that imitate the long-dead? And why would a shifter be spending its time luring random people to their deaths? They don't work like this, man."

"Well, if you've got a better idea, by all means, lay it on me, Sammy."

Sam gently massaged his aching temple, wincing as his fingers brushed the bruise on the side of his head. "There's only one thing I can think of at the moment," he admitted.

"What's that?" Dean wanted to know, raising his eyebrows and glancing sidelong at his brother.

"Painkillers, bro."

Dean snorted. "Wimp."

"Jerk."

"Bi…" Before Dean could finish the customary insult, a soft snore emanated from the seat beside him. Sam had dropped off, just like that. Smiling slightly, Dean shook his head and decided to let the kid sleep. Despite Dean's teasing, Sam had had a rough couple of days and needed all the rest he could get.

Dean turned up his music, enjoying listening to it without Sam griping for once, and drove toward the hotel. After a couple of minutes, his phone rang. He groped around in the center console for it, not bothering to check the number. He knew it would be Bobby, calling to find out what was taking his two favorite idgets so long to wrap up this supposedly simple vengeful spirit case. Dean found that he didn't mind, considering the recent developments in the job. He had absolutely no idea what this S.O.B. could be, and he knew they needed Bobby to help figure it out.

"Hey," he answered, fully expecting to hear Bobby's voice coming from the other line.

"Dean?"

At the all-too-familiar but impossible voice, Dean's heart nearly stopped and the involuntarily slammed on the brakes, stopping abruptly on the side of a lonely country road. Sam flew forward, the seatbelt keeping him from going through the windshield. As it was, he got rudely awakened by an even worse headache from bumping his head on the window he'd fallen asleep against,  _plus_  his neck was killing him from the whiplash Dean had just given him. He painfully turned his head to complain to his brother about his reckless driving, but when he saw Dean's deathly pale face and the way his hand trembled as he gripped his cell phone tightly, he changed course.

"Dean? What's going on? Who's on the phone?"

Dean closed his eyes, swearing under his breath. With a shaky voice, eyes opening, he answered.

"It's Dad."


	8. Chapter 8

Sam stared at his brother, eyes wide and expression haunted. "What?" he asked. "What did you just say?"

"It… it's Dad." Dean turned his attention away from Sam and spoke into the phone again, his voice tense and urgent. "Dad? Dad, can you hear me?"

Sam put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Dean, it can't be Dad," he reminded Dean.

"I know that, Sam, I ain't stupid!" Dean snapped, but Sam was able to see a wild glint of something akin to hope in the back of his brother's eyes. It was a deeply hidden gleam, so deep, in fact, that Sam imagined that even Dean didn't know it was there. Sam understood that Dean wanted  _desperately_  for their father to still be alive somehow, but it was impossible. Sam felt the same twinge of hope, the  _what if_  burning in his mind no matter how much he tried to oust it. It simply couldn't be John Winchester.

Dean slammed the phone shut, glowering. "Dammit, Sam!" he cursed. "He's gone!"

Sam closed his eyes briefly before answering. "Dean, I don't think he was ever there in the first place. We need to calm down, think this through rationally—"

" _I am calm, dammit!_ " Dean spat, and Sam briefly entertained the idea of smoke coming from his brother's ears.

"Yeah, you're the picture of serenity," Sam said sarcastically. Dean grimaced, but did actually manage to somewhat smooth over his expression and lower his voice.

"I know it's not really him, Sammy," Dean admitted, and Sam didn't quite have the heart to correct his brother with an emphatic "It's  _Sam_ ," so he just sat and listened to Dean working through what had just happened. "I mean, it can't've been, but, crap, Sam – you didn't hear his voice like I did. I mean, there wasn't any malevolence, nothing to distrust about it, you know?"

"Except that it was the voice of a dead man," Sam said in what he hoped was a reasonable tone, but judging by the fire that lit in Dean's eyes at the mention of John Winchester as just some "dead man," Sam had failed spectacularly at his effort to keep things neutral in the haphazardly parked Impala.

"You don't just not believe that it's Dad," Dean snapped angrily. "I don't think that you  _want_  it to be him, either."

Sam's mouth fell open in indignation. "How could you say that, man?"

"You've never gotten along with Dad, and you've been so hell-bent on me talking about my feelings and getting over his death. I can't believe I didn't see it before – you're glad he's gone. You've never liked having his authority over you, and now that you're finally free of it, you can't stand the thought of having him back. You're pathetic, you know that?"

Sam stared at Dean, his heart racing madly in anger. He opened his mouth furiously to respond, but Dean cut him off. "Sorry to disappoint you, Sam, but I'm not so sure that it  _wasn't_  Dad."

Sam was so shocked that he didn't respond to Dean's prior insult, instead addressing his brother's crazed statement. "You're kidding me. Dean, whatever's going on here, we're now being targeted. There's no way it could be Dad, no matter how much either one of us wants it to be. I – we – can't afford for you to get sucked in by this spirit, or whatever's doing this, now."

Dean didn't respond for several moments, but when he did, it nearly broke Sam's heart. "I'm going to find out what's going on, and if that  _was_  Dad's spirit somehow contacting me, then I'll find him, with or without your help. So if you're not going to help me find him, you can make your own way back. Get out."

Sam's breath hitched in his throat. Was Dean  _seriously_  kicking him out of the car? Now? Something was seriously screwing with his brother's head, and Sam knew that he had to figure out what was going on before Dean became the next cliff diver or bog body. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself so that he could help Dean, when something outside of the car caught his eye. It was a flash of blue fabric disappearing into some trees on the side of the road. Sam could have sworn that he had seen a glimpse of silky blonde hair tailing the blue before they had both faded into the trees.

Transfixed, Sam held out his hand to his brother, indicating that Dean should wait. Heart and head pounding in sync, Sam opened the Impala's door and slowly rose from the seat, closing the door as quietly as he could behind him. He was still a little dizzy from the concussion, but he managed to make it across the roadside ditch with minimal stumbling, climbing up victorious on the other side. He was so focused on the strange vision that he had seen earlier that he nearly leaped back into the ditch in surprise when he heard the engine of the Impala roar back to life, and a squeal of tires indicating that the car had sped away.

Shocked out of his stupor, Sam spun around to see his brother's baby speeding around an upcoming curve and out of sight. Sam stared in shock as his ride disappeared. Dean had actually  _left_  him stranded on the side of the road, and with a concussion, no less! Sam tried to remind himself that something wasn't right with Dean, but as his head gave yet another painful pulse, Sam couldn't seem to find any empathy for the older man at the moment.

Growling angrily at his brother's betrayal, Sam gave one last glance to where he had seen the disappearing form and made his way back through the ditch and on to the road, preparing himself for the six-and-a-half mile walk back to the motel.

If some vengeful spirit pretending to be their father didn't get to Dean first, Sam was going to  _kill_  his brother.

* * *

Dean arrived at the motel in record time. He had made the drive from the curb where he'd stopped after the (literally) haunting phone call to his temporary place of residence in record time. He didn't really even remember much of the drive home, other than the anger at Sam he had experienced, and the warring hope and disbelief at having heard John Winchester's voice from his cell phone.

About a mile from the motel, Dean began to realize that he might not should have driven off without Sam, even if he had given the kid a fair warning beforehand. After all, Sam did have a concussion, and even though Dean was seriously pissed at him right now, if something were to happen to his little brother because Dean had stranded him, concussed, on a Louisiana back road with some mysterious monster on the loose, chances were that Dean would never forgive himself. Still, he couldn't bring himself to turn around and go back for Sam, because he found himself recalling how relieved and happy his father had sounded on the phone.

No, not his father. Sam was right, Dean decided as he pulled into the motel's parking lot. As much as Dean wanted it to be his father, there was too much weirdness going on for his father's apparent return from the dead to be true. Dean told himself this, several times, in fact, but he couldn't shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, John had managed to evade death or retract the deal he had made for Dean's life. Or maybe he had never actually died in the first place. Maybe he was really there, alive and in need of Dean's help.

And Dean was back to being furious at Sam again.

It wasn't until he had plopped down onto the tattered couch in the motel room that he truly realized what an idiot he was for leaving Sam, especially when he heard the tell-tale pitter-patter of what could only be rain drumming down on the tin roof of the motel. "Crap," he groused, glancing at his watch and realizing that Sam hadn't had enough time to walk back yet, and tried to convince himself that he needn't worry about his brother, and that he hadn't done anything wrong in driving off without him. Dean resolved to give Sam another half hour, and if he wasn't back by then, Dean would drive out after him.

Fifteen minutes later, though, his plans were changed when his phone rang again. Upon hearing the ringing sound, Dean froze, suddenly terrified to answer the cell phone, afraid that he would hear his dad's voice again, but also yearning to hear it. With shaking hands, he reached for the phone and flipped it open, not bothering to look at the caller ID. "Hello?" he answered, hoping that his voice wasn't shaking too much. He hated feeling so emotional, so vulnerable.

"Dean? You tell that idget brother of yours that if he calls me asking for advice, he damn well better pick up when I call him back with information!"

"Bobby," Dean said, surprised. He pulled the phone back to check the screen, and sure enough, one of Bobby's many numbers was on the screen.

"Yeah, who else would it be?" Bobby snapped. "Where's that brother of yours?"

"Sam?" Dean asked, surprised. Sam had had his phone on him when he'd left the car; his brother always kept it on his person in case someone – like Bobby – needed to get ahold of him.

"No, your other brother," Bobby replied, sarcasm dripping from his words. "He called me early this morning about this case you're on. You two shoulda called me sooner. It took nearly six hours' worth of digging, but I think I found something, and it ain't pretty. You boys need to watch your step out there, and stay together. You're dealing with one nasty S.O.B."

Dean felt his insides grow cold at Bobby's words. He hadn't had any idea that Sam had called Bobby this morning, but it was just like him to call for help and not tell Dean about it, because Sam didn't tell Dean much of anything these days – except to open up about their father's death. Dean jumped to his feet even as Bobby warned him about whatever it was they were facing, and grabbed his keys from the coffee table where he had tossed them upon entering the room.

"You said you couldn't get hold of Sam?" Dean asked as he hastened out the door and through the rain to the Impala.

"No, but I figured he'd be with you. Where's he at?"

"Bobby, I think I might have made a big mistake…" Dean admitted, trailing off as he started the car and peeled out of the parking lot.

"What did you do, y'idgit?" Bobby groaned.

"I might have… kind of… left Sam on the side of the road half an hour ago… and it's raining and he hasn't come back yet."

Bobby cursed. "Can I ask why you did this stupid thing?"

"You can, Bobby, but I doubt you'll like the answer," Dean hedged, not really in the mood to get lectured any further by the man. When Bobby made an impatient noise in his throat, Dean relented. "I got angry at him because he didn't believe me when I told him who had just called me."

There was silence for several long moments on the other end, and Dean concentrated on peering through the pouring rain for any sign of his brother, although there seemed to be no trace of the man. When Bobby spoke, his voice was resigned. "Lemme guess," he said. "You got a call from your father, didn't you?"

Dean gasped. "How the heck did you know that?"

"Because," Bobby sighed heavily, "that's just the way that these things work. It's set its sights on you, and probably your brother too, because you've become a threat. Chances are, Sam is going to be seeing some people from  _his_  past, too, and with the two of you apart… together, you stand a chance of staying grounded, but apart… Dean, you've got to find your brother,  _now_."

Dean's voice was surprisingly steady as he asked, "What exactly are we dealing with, Bobby?"

"A spectre," Bobby responded dully, "and from what you've told me, a nasty one at that. Now, do exactly what I tell you, and you and your brother might just live to see another sunrise."


	9. Chapter 9

"I still don't get it," Dean said as he sped in the direction that he had left his brother.

"There's a surprise," Bobby grunted sarcastically. Normally, Dean would have a smart retort on the tip of his tongue at Bobby's criticism, but right now he was too busy trying to peer through the pouring rain for any sign of Sam to think of a rebuttal.

"I thought specters were just another name for ghosts. You know, you could use ghost, spirit, and specter interchangeably."

"A common mistake," Bobby admitted. "Most hunters never meet one of these sneaky little bastards, and so they don't ever learn about them. I make it a point, like your dad did, to find out anything and everything I can about the supernatural, so that I'll be ready when something like this does come up."

Dean could hear the reproach for being lax on research in Bobby's voice, although in his defense, he thought that he and Sam researched quite a lot for their jobs. Well, Sam researched and then told Dean what he'd found out. But it wasn't like they had been going in blind. Expect, well, this time, it seemed that they had indeed gone in blind. Not that he would admit it. "We just thought it was a simple salt n' burn, at least at first," Dean defended himself. He had now come to the approximate spot that he'd left Sam, and through the rain that was pounding down harder than ever, he could see no trace of his brother. "But then it got… weird."

"Yeah, and you shoulda called me as soon as it did, ya idget. But never mind. Listen closely. A specter is a type of spirit, sure. It's origins are obscure, but from what little I've been able to dig up, the first sightings of these guys were in the forests of Scotland, Ireland, all those Celtic areas, before Christianity was introduced by the Romans. So they're way old. In some of the older tales, they're called will o' the wisps."

"Those, I've heard of. They lure travelers to their death, right? But they're not real. I mean, they're in kid's stories and old, boring poems, but I've never heard anything about them actually existing." Dean was itching to jump out of the car now and go after his brother, but he knew that he had to hear Bobby out first so that he would be better prepared for when he did go after Sam and the specter.

Bobby snorted. "Seriously, kid? After all this time in the hunting business, and you're surprised that anything exists? You're soft."

"Am not!" Dean protested petulantly, before schooling his tone and trying to calm down enough to finish the conversation civilly. He needed answers, and fast. "Look, just tell me what we're dealing with. And quickly, _please_ , I don't know how much time I – Sam –  _we_  have left."

There was a brief but tense moment of silence before the old hunter continued grimly. "The old stories talk about a ball of light luring people away from the marshy paths and into the bogs of the English moors and Scottish countryside. That's sort of what they do, but it's a little more cruel than that. They are shape-shifters. Some people who have tried to learn more about them believe that they could actually be the ghosts of shifters, although I'm not so sure. They take the form of a loved one, someone that the victim has lost and misses more than anything. They then lead that person to their death, but not before making them go crazy first. There's really no discernible pattern to their attacks, although they do kill in bursts. I think they're afraid if they lured people to their deaths non-stop, they would either run out of victims or become noticed. There's an old legend – probably a load'a horse crap – that says if someone actually manages to capture a specter or a wisp, and it'll have to grant them one wish, or answer one question, depending on the version you hear. I don't believe it, but—"

"Yeah, that's great, Bobby, you're a skeptic," Dean said impatiently. "But how do we resist it? How do we kill it, or capture it, or whatever? Am I safe now that I know about it? I mean, if I can resist its lure, can it hurt me physically?"

"Not by itself, no, but like I said, it gets into the heads of the people it tricks. And it could still very well get into yours, even if you know the truth. But it can turn parents against their kids, husbands against their wives…"

"And brothers against their brothers," Dean finished darkly. "Crap. Well, what are its weaknesses?"

"A guarded mind. Strength of heart. A strong, unmoving will. And a hell of a lot of pete."

"Pete?" Dean blinked. "Who the heck is Pete?"

"Not Pete,  _pete_ , you idiot! It's found in bogs; it's a preservative. It's weird, because a lot of times, specters kill their victims in bogs. But there have been a couple of stories about specters getting dragged into the marsh with their victims, never to come out. There's a bit of poetic justice there. Or injustice. Oh, hell. I don't know. It's ironic, I guess. Most of the time, their victims are too incapacitated and la-la-loopy that they don't even try to defend themselves. But for some reason, when immersed in the bogs themselves, they are trapped, maybe even killed."

"Thanks Bobby," Dean said truthfully, even though he couldn't say that his old friend was that helpful in the end. "I'm going to find Sam now. I'll call you when we get back safely."

There was a long pause. "Make sure you do, kid. Many a hunter's been claimed by a specter because they don't know what they're dealing with. Keep your wits about ya, and keep your head on straight. And don't be an idget. And make sure you take care of your brother and –"

Dean smiled wanly to himself, hung up, and got out of the car into the rain that was coming down in droves.

"Okay, Mr. Specter. It's about time to dance," Dean said solemnly, and then, armed with a couple of salt-filled guns, his already soaked jacket, and way too much overconfidence, the eldest Winchester ran off of the road, regrettably leaving his beautiful baby parked on the side, and went to go find the  _other_  baby in his small and broken family – his baby brother. And he was  _not_  coming back without him.

* * *

Despite himself, Sam was getting seriously freaked out.

He wasn't sure how he had gotten here, to begin with. He didn't think he was drunk. He didn't feel like he had a hangover. He was actually kind of pleasantly numb, although that might have had more to do with the fact that he was soaked with freezing rain than anything. He had no idea where he was. It was getting dark, and rain was pouring down.

He was in an eerie place, a small clearing in a forest of evil-looking mangroves. The ground was soft and squishy, and in places it didn't look solid at all. Despite the thin layer of foliage from the mangrove trees above him, the rain still pelted him mercilessly. The sparse, bluish grass was flooding, and only the tips could be seen over the water now.

And even with the pouring rain and the trees and the cold, there was also fog – a deep, penetrating fog that somehow persisted even with the rain attacking it. Sam wasn't even sure if that was possible, and he was a hunter. He knew that pretty much anything was possible.

He remembered Dean snapping at him about something. What, exactly, he wasn't entirely sure, considering that the cold and whatever else was affecting his brain had made things extremely fuzzy at this point. Dean told him to leave. Sam got out and saw… something. The fabric? Yes, blue fabric. Like that pretty blue sundress Jess used to wear. No, not used to. Wears now. She's alive, somehow. She's here. Somewhere in this hole, Jess is waiting for him. He has to find her.

Sam started to panic. Where was Jess? Why was she torturing him? What was she doing? Why wouldn't she just come out? Oh, how he longed to see her in full again, and not just a tiny snatch of her baby-doll sundress. Her blonde hair, her kind eyes, her mischievous smile. He knew she was here somewhere. He could sense her.

Something reared up in the back of his mind. Something that told him that this wasn't right. Jess was dead, right? She'd been killed, just like his mother had been. She'd been on the ceiling. Burning. Bleeding. No. NO!

He'd seen her. Glimpses here and there. And she was going to come out soon. And they would be together again.

Dean's face loomed in his mind, and he tried once again to remember what they'd argued about. Had it been Jess? Had Dean been telling him that he didn't need to go after her? No, something about that didn't seem right. He had a strange feeling that maybe it had been the other way around. He hesitated in his thought processes – or the sorry excuse for thought processes, anyway – and tried to clear his head. No, he  _had_  been warning Dean about something, hadn't he? About… about… Dad? No, surely not. Why would Dad ever want to hurt them?

But Dad was dead. Like Jess was dead.

Something  _definitely_  wasn't right here. Sam desperately clawed for the surface of the mire that fogged his addled brain. The cold rain continued to wash over him, and he wished that it would clear his mind like a spray of frigid water usually did. He thought hard, and he felt understanding coming to him. It was just out of his grasp, hovering tantalizingly just out of reach. He knew that he could figure out what was going on if he could just… think…

 _Jess_.

There she was, standing not ten yards away from him. Despite the rain in his eyes and falling between them, he could see her perfectly. She was beautiful… angelic. All thoughts of Dean, any doubts, fled his frazzled mind at the sight of her. Blessed numbness returned, and as he looked into her eyes, he knew that he had to go to her, forget the hazardous terrain that lay between them!

He took a step forward, then another. He realized that his hand was stretched out towards her. He took another step, and his foot started to sink into the mud. He didn't stop, though, until he was about knee deep and ten feet from his beloved. She held out her arm as well, but her hand was not reaching for him. Instead, she held her palm out, indicating that he should stop. Sam's heart sank. She was so close! Why would she deny him now? They were going to be together, forever! Why did she keep doing this to him?

And then she spoke, and he reveled in the sound of her sweet, perfect, lilting voice. "Patience, Sam Winchester." When she said his name, he had to resist every impulse in his frozen body that told him to lunge forward, into her arms, despite her warnings. "It is not time for us to be together. We are waiting for your brother to join us. And your father. And then all four of us can be happy, forever and ever, together. We'll be a true family. Isn't that what you've always wanted? A family? Reconciliation? Love from Dean? Love from John? Love from… me?"

"Yes," he said desperately, and he realized that he did want this, more than anything that he had ever yearned for.

"Who knows? You might even get to meet Mommy again. Wouldn't that be a wonderful reunion?"

"Yes, please," Sam panted desperately. It physically hurt him not to go towards her, but he did what she wanted, because she was Jess and he loved her.

"Then you must be patient. Stay there until I tell you otherwise. When your brother arrives, he may not understand us. I may need you to help me persuade him to join us. How far are you willing to go to bring us all together again?"

"I will do anything," Sam promised. "Anything."

Jess smiled, and Sam didn't even cringe at the sudden darkness in her face and eyes, or the cruelty in her smile. "Good," she purred. "Very good."

Slowly, she faded away, but still Sam heeded her orders, not moving a muscle even as the rain fell and the water rose around his legs. And he waited.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean had been running around in the pouring rain, his feet constantly being pulled at by the flooding, marshy ground for close to an hour, and he wasn't any closer to finding Sam – and he wasn't entirely sure where  _he_ was anymore, either. For all Dean knew, Sam was already dead, having been lured to his demise by a pseudo-Jessica. He wouldn't rest, however, until he had found his brother, and he refused to entertain the possibility that his brother was dead.

"SAM!" the desperate hunter yelled, his voice hoarse from all the shouting he had done in the past hour. He swiped his sodden sleeve across his eyes, trying to clear the moisture from his vision, but he only succeeded in making things worse for himself. "SAM!" He had a feeling it was fruitless, calling out to his brother like this, because the rain was falling in loud sheets, and thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. The sound of the rain hitting the already wet ground of the bogs was the loudest, and Dean could barely hear his own straining voice over the roaring splashes all around him. It was getting dark, and not just from the dense layers of clouds up above.

Night was falling, and Dean was wandering around in the bogs in a storm, and the greatest danger at the moment wasn't even the specter that was haunting this eerie mangrove forest: Dean had to test every single step before he took it, because as he'd quickly discovered, one wrong step could be his last. Even with the aid of his flashlight to help him, there was no way of telling where the solid(ish) ground ended and where the marsh began. He had nearly lost his left shoe earlier in the deadly bog, and had resolved to move slowly and take extra care despite the urgency of the situation. He'd be no good to Sam if he drowned in the marsh.

After calling Sam's name a few more times, sweeping his waterproof flashlight around the area, and taking a few more tentative steps, he decided to try another course of action that he had been contemplating for a little while, but had been a bit hesitant to go through with. He had a feeling that it might work, and if it did, he would soon find himself face to face with his father – or rather, the specter posing as his father, and as much as he wanted – as he  _needed_  – to save Sam, he wasn't quite sure he was ready for that yet. So far, he had just heard his dad's voice, and that had been torment enough. Even though Dean now knew the power of the specter he was facing, he still couldn't help feeling the tiniest spark of hope, that maybe, somehow, John Winchester was still alive. He knew with his head that it was impossible, but his heart wasn't completely convinced. He was so afraid that he'd take one look at his father – the specter, whatever – and be overcome. He was afraid that he wouldn't be strong enough to save Sam. If  _Sam_  was the rational one, the one who had told Dean that John wasn't real, and if  _he_  had been taken in by specter-Jess, then what chance did Dean, the impulsive one, have, really?

Still, this was Sammy's life on the line, and if Dean didn't change his technique pretty soon, it might not even matter if he could resist the specter, because Sam would be dead. Dean took a deep breath and braced himself. "Hey, Specter!" he yelled as loudly as he could. He had a feeling that the SOB would somehow hear him even if he were whispering, but it never hurt to be safe. "Come on, you cowardly son of a bitch! Face me! Let my brother go, and face me like a man… ghost… whatever the heck you are! C'mon!"

Nothing happened. Dean cursed, spun around, and found himself face to face with Sam!

"Holy crap, Sammy!" Dean shouted as he took in his brother's ragged appearance. He was shivering wildly, his clothes were torn, and the bandage on his head was soaked with fresh blood. Sam's eyes were surprisingly calm, though, even as he shook like a leaf. "Where the hell did you come from?"

"I… I just got away," his brother admitted, his eyes fixated on Dean's. Relief spread through the oldest Winchester, and even the biting cold and piercing rain didn't seem to matter so much anymore, now that Sam was back. "The specter left, and even though I was still under its spell, I managed to break free from its hold and go searching for you. I can't believe I found you!"

Dean pulled Sam to him and gave his brother a crushing hug and then pulled away to get a better look at him. Sam looked terrible, but he seemed to emanate serenity from his expression, which Dean hastily attributed to relief at having been rescued. "Sam, I talked to Bobby," he said seriously, "and I know what we're up against. It's a—" Dean broke off, suddenly realizing something odd. Slowly, Dean addressed his brother, not even blinking out the rain as he searched Sam's face. "I never told you about the specter," he said. "How did you know about it? Bobby just told me after you'd disappeared."

Sam didn't even blink. "It addressed me," he said, and Dean could detect no hint of deceit in his brother's tone. "I guess it was getting bored of waiting for you, so it started talking to me about how you and I are its greatest hunt yet, hunters for the hunter. It said it was called a specter, but I'm not sure what that means."

"Oh," said Dean, thinking that Sam's answer made a good deal of sense. Still, there was something that lingered in the back of his mind, nagging at him and insisting that everything wasn't all right, although how could it not be, when he had Sam back? "Well, we need to get you out of here, bro. We can commence round two when that head injury's better."

Sam almost looked panicked for the briefest of seconds, but his expression changed so rapidly that Dean thought that he might have just imagined it. That wasn't implausible, especially with the weather the way it was. "Actually, Dean, I think we might be able to nail this thing tonight. I think I remember where it was planning on killing us. If we can get there tonight…"

Little warning bells went off in Dean's head, but he brushed them aside as he considered Sam's idea. Part of him wanted to insist that they go back, now, but the other part of him countered that it might be a  _really_  bad idea to leave the bog just yet. Something still didn't feel right, and if something was wrong with his brother, something that the specter had done… Sam was right. They had to face this thing tonight. A sort-of half-a-plan had been forming in Dean's mind about how to take on the specter, and he figured that with Sam's help, the two of them could bring the trouble maker down fairly easily.

He met Sam's anxious gaze and dipped his head in agreement. "You're right, Sam. We need to do this tonight."

Sam smiled, and something about that smile sent chills down Dean's spine. Something really wasn't right here…

But then Sam grabbed his upper arm, and at his touch, Dean felt all of his concerns melt away like they had never been there, save for one little spark that kindled slightly when Sam started off into the marsh, Dean in tow, with that odd smile and a mutter of, "Follow me, Dean."

* * *

For a while, Dean was simply happy being with his brother, and was content with the knowledge that they had found each other again, and that they were going to finish this tonight. But another part of him continued to stubbornly insist that all was not right with his brother. Regardless, the eldest Winchester continued to follow the taller man through the marshy sludge. Sam knew just where to step in order to avoid getting sucked in to the mire. It was almost eerie how almost… at home Sam seemed in the bog all of a sudden. But every time that Dean tried to focus on this oddity, he felt his mind drifting away again.

After they had traveled for about fifteen minutes, Sam not uttering another word, not even looking back to make sure Dean was still there (it was like he just  _knew_  without having to check that Dean would continue to follow him, no matter what), Bobby's voice suddenly and inexplicably echoed in Dean's abnormally complacent mind. "You idget!" Imaginary Bobby griped. "You don't listen to a damn word I tell you, do you, Dean?"

Dean stumbled over a protruding mangrove root, and his left foot landed in murky water with a splash. Up ahead, Sam stopped and looked back for the first time. There was an impatient gleam in his eyes, but it disappeared quickly when Sam realized that Dean was looking right back at him. Dean didn't know what it was that had made him think of Bobby's warnings, but he was glad that it did, because he remembered suddenly that the seasoned hunter had said that specters don't always take the forms of the dead – sometimes, they mimicked the living, too. The person just had to be missed, and the victim had to want to see them again. They had to want to be with them. The specter recreated a person that its intended target would willingly follow anywhere.

And Dean was the target.

He cursed himself for being so stupid, and then made a quick mental note to thank Bobby later for being so persistent that Dean couldn't even escape from his advice when he was being manipulated by a specter that looked like his brother! Dean figured that even Bobby's warnings had been overshadowed by his relief at seeing his brother again, but the longer he had to think, the more he realized that something was wrong, until his inner-Bobby (and he shuddered to think of there being any bit of Bobby, even mental, inside of him, but that wasn't important right now) had burst forth and reminded him that he was a world-class idiot.

"Sam" narrowed his eyes slightly, and Dean wondered if the specter had figured out that Dean knew. "Everything okay, Dean?" the imposter asked, and Dean managed an easygoing nod and even a smile.

"Yeah, Sammy. Stupid root caught me. We almost there? I'm freezing my butt off out here."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "We're close," he said, and he beckoned for Dean to keep up, although the older brother could barely see the gesture through the still pouring rain. "C'mon."

Dean followed, but this time he had a different agenda in mind. He wasn't following a fake Sam because he thought it was the real Sam, but he was following a fake Sam in order to  _save_  the real Sam. Now he just had to keep his head on straight long enough to make it to his real brother and come up with some semblance of a plan. He focused on Bobby's voice, on the man's warnings, and he thought about Sam – the  _real_  Sam – and about how he absolutely could not fail. Period.

"Okay, Sam," Dean said, hoping that he sounded properly enchanted. "You know I'd follow you anywhere."

* * *

After about another ten minutes or so of trudging through the swamp – and the rain hadn't let up one bit the whole time that Dean was walking – Dean was having a bit of trouble remembering why he was so suspicious about following Sam. He had to constantly remind himself that this Sam was actually Specter Sam, and that if Dean was going to rescue Real Sam, he'd have to remember the difference.

Dean was telling himself that Real Sam was out there somewhere for what seemed like the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes (and, quite possibly, might have been the fiftieth time for all Dean knew) when Specter Sam led his follower to what appeared to be a kind of clearing. Or, rather, it was what  _would_  have been a clearing if the ground was actually visible underneath the flooded mixture of rainwater and swamp sludge. Dean saw what appeared to be a short, shadowy form on one end of the clearing. It could only have been about four and a half feet tall, and Dean squinted to see who it was.

It was Sam.

Real Sam. His Sam.

But he was so short…

And then it hit Dean – the water had risen to such a ridiculous height in this spot that Sam was covered with water almost to his waist. His brother was shivering, but otherwise stood still. When he saw his doppelganger, he didn't react in the slightest, but when he saw Dean, on the other hand, he yelled (or rather, tried to yell, as his voice was weak and shaky from the cold and wet), "DEAN! I've been waiting for you!"

Dean half-walked, half-swam across the clearing, well aware the Specter Sam was standing to one side, just watching the brothers interact. That didn't bode well, but Dean was too relieved to care. Sam was (relatively) okay. Upon reaching his brother, Dean reached out and grabbed Sam's hand in his own, and recoiled at the icy touch. "Holy crap, Sam. You're frozen. If you've got your head on straight, then why the heck have you just been standing here? You should've tried to make your way back, or find shelter, or look for me!"

Sam blinked. "But you told me to wait for you. I wanted to follow you, Dean. I really, really wanted to follow you. But you told me—"

Dean blanched. Maybe Sam's head  _wasn_ _'_ _t_ on straight. He'd just assumed that since Sam had recognized him and seemed fairly aware that he was okay, and not totally under the specter's control. But it seemed that their shape-shifting friend had played the same kind of game with Sam that he had with Dean. "Sam, it wasn't me."

"The  _real_  Dean said you'd say that," Sam said. "And so did she, right before she had to go, and Dean came along."

"Dammit, I  _am_  Dean! And who's she?"

"Jess," said Sam wistfully. "And Dad's coming later. Mom, too. Dean will be so excited. You know, he thinks that I don't care about Dad, or his death, but he's dead wrong. And I'll prove it to him, after we waste you and put things right."

Dean stared through the pelting rain. "Sam, are you even listening to yourself?" he asked roughly. "Dad and Jess, they're both gone. You know there's a shifter, or else you wouldn't think  _I_ _'_ _m_  one. But look – there's another _you_  right there."

"You're crazy!" Sam retorted. "That's not me. It's Dad."

Dean turned around and jumped violently. The Specter had apparently moved from its original position, and it was now inches away from Dean's face. The only problem: It wasn't Sam anymore. It was John Winchester, and Dean began to feel rational thought slipping away at seeing his father's face once again, alive and well.

"Hi, Dean," John said. "Hi, Sam. It sure is great to  _finally_  have you boys together so that we can finish this nasty business once and for all."


	11. Chapter 11

"D-Dad?" Dean stammered, his eyes wide. He could feel his heart pounding wildly in his chest. The rising marsh and the icy, stinging raindrops on his skin were reduced to mere background annoyances. Even Sam had become less of a worry – more of a passing concern, really – now that Dean was staring at John Winchester once more.

"I t-t-told you D-Dad was h-h-here," Sam stuttered through the cold, and it was his brother's weakened voice that brought Dean out of his shocked stupor.

 _Dammit!_  He cursed himself mentally. He had gone into this thing with every intention  _not_  to get caught up in the specter's lies and  _not_  to be taken in by any tricks the monster might play, and he had already failed. He'd taken one look at his father's face and he'd turned into a dumb, dazed…  _idgit_. Bobby's normally unconventional vocabulary seemed oddly fitting in this situation.

Blinking slowly, Dean raised his voice so that Sam could hear him over the rain splashing into the flooded marsh water. He kept eye contact with his father – no, with the specter – the entire time that he spoke to his brother. "No, Sam," Dean said in the most convincing voice he could muster. "It's not Dad. Dad is. . . He's . . ."

"S-standing right in f-f-front of you," Sam countered.

"No, Sam, he's dead!" Dean bellowed, his voice cracking slightly as he said aloud the phrase that he had been vehemently avoiding ever since John had died. He finally broke eye contact with the unmoving, unblinking image of his father. He faced his younger brother, about waist deep in rising water, and looking perfectly content in his situation. Dean wanted to reach out and pull him onto slightly higher ground, but he honestly didn't know how Sam would react at this point. Right now, he just needed to get through to his brother. No matter how painful that would be – for both of them.

"You hear that, Sammy? You catch that?" Dean screamed over the horrendous weather. He felt a warm drop of water slide down his face, mixing with the cold rain, but he didn't wipe his eyes. There was no point. "Dad is  _dead_. He was a freaking selfish idiot, and he traded his life for mine! He died. He's dead. You wanted me to talk about my feelings, didn't you? To own up to the truth that we're now orphans? Fine. I'm pissed. I'm so angry that Dad was so freaking selfish that he didn't care to live if I died. He didn't for one second consider what it would do to  _me_ , to  _us_ , if he went through with his ridiculous deal! He was a coward, he couldn't face life after losing someone else, so he forced us to!" Sam was staring at him, eyes wide and slightly unfocused. Dean wasn't even sure that Sam had actually heard or comprehended a single word he'd said. But he really didn't care at this point. He'd waited a long time to say this, and it was going to take more than the lack of a listening ear to shut him up now. "I know that's not Dad because Dad isn't alive. We needed him, and he deserted us, and I still. . . I still need him, and there's no way that my luck is good enough for Dad's being back to actually be real, so I  _know_  that this is a trick. And so should you!" Dean repressed a shudder. "He's dead, Jess is dead, and Mom is dead, Sam. They're not coming."

Dean could barely make out his brother's face through the torrential rain, but he could hear the hurt and confusion in Sam's voice. "Why would you say that, Dean? We're getting a second chance with them."

"John" took the opportunity to speak up again. The specter had been standing back, watching the brothers' interaction with a look of mild interest on its face, but now it re-entered the conversation, looking and sounding every bit like the father Sam and Dean had grown up with and missed so much. "Dean, you're brother's right. This is something that doesn't happen often, but in our line of work, you know that anything is possible. You boys have been through hell, and you're finally getting a reward for all of the good you've done and the bad you've suffered. Come on, Dean. You've always trusted me and backed me more than anyone. I can't tell you how much it hurts me to see you betray that trust now, son."

Dean felt like a dagger had been shoved into his heart and then twisted brutally. His breath caught in his throat. His father was right, wasn't he? What was he thinking? He'd been torn apart inside about his father's death for weeks, and now he refused to be happy now that he had returned?

Dean might have very well bought in to the specter's ruse for good if he hadn't seen the slight tug of his father's lip at Dean's apparent surrender. It was a minute smirk, and if lightning hadn't lit up the area at that moment, Dean would have never caught sight of the tiny but chilling smile. And he knew.

He couldn't talk Sam out of this. He could tell that Sam had totally fallen for the trick, and as inconvenient as that was, he couldn't actually blame him. Dean himself had almost succumbed to the specter several times already, and he wasn't concussed and waist-deep in water, either. His understanding Sam's vulnerability didn't necessarily mean that he wouldn't give his brother some flack about it later, if they survived this, but he couldn't worry about that right now.

He struggled to keep his expression the same, wanting the specter to think that he was still under its influence as he tried to think of a way to snap Sam out of his stupor. It finally hit him. If he couldn't  _talk_ Sam into believing him, he'd have to  _show_ him what they were dealing with. After all, that's what had jerked Dean out of it – the proof of the smirk. One dark, evil tug of the mouth. And if Dean executed this right, he could do way better than one little facial expression, and judging by how far gone Sam seemed to be right now, he'd need a bigger jolt.

In one lightning-quick move, Dean had reached into his long jacket and pulled out a small but still powerful gun that was loaded with rock salt. Even if it wouldn't harm the specter in the long run, it would at least give it a shock. And if Dean was lucky. . .

He fired three rapid shots right at the specter, and for one time in his life, luck, or fate, or karma, or whatever the heck it was, was actually on Dean's side. The specter let out an unearthly screech as the rock salt hit it, and its form sputtered – it was John, then it was Jessica, and then it was a little girl with caramel skin, and then it was the woman whose bones they'd burned at the graveyard the other day. At last, it regained its stability and became John Winchester again, but thankfully, the damage had already been done.

Sam stood, shivering wildly, like the cold, rain, wind, and the fact that he was standing in a pool of muck and water almost up to his chest had just become apparent. "D-d-dean?" he stammered, his voice almost inaudible. "W-what. . .?"

"I told you, Sam, it's a frickin' specter!"

"Oh," Sam said mildly, as if he'd just been informed that they were going to lunch at McDonalds. After so many years of hunting monsters, fighting ghosts, and exorcising demons, there really wasn't anything too surprising anymore. Even the craziest of revelations were generally mundane. Of course, the fact that Sam's body was almost certainly going into shock at this point probably didn't help matters, either. He was a trooper, though; Dean had to give him that. "H-h-how do w-w-we kill it?"

"Peat," said Dean, praying to whoever was listening that Sam would understand without further explanations, because the specter was recovering its senses now, and it looked  _ticked_. Thankfully, Sam's geekiness wasn't too terribly affected by his state, and after just a moment, his eyes widened in understanding.

"I've g-got it," he said. "W-we have t-to make it f-follow us inst-stead."

"What?" Dean asked, but the time for talking was over. John Winchester was back, and he was angry.

"Sam, Dean!" he roared. "I've  _never_ been so disappointed in you in all of my life! You must be punished."

"Newsflash," Dean said. "Our Dad is dead. He gave up his life for mine. He's a. . ." Dean's voice caught in his throat, but he pushed forward in his vocalizing the realization that he had just come to. "He's a hero."

"But I'm right here," not-John said in what might have been a placating tone, but Dean wasn't fooled any longer. In fact, he was coming up with a plan. He didn't know for sure what Sam had in mind, but seeing as his brother didn't seem to be up to much physically at the moment, though he was sluggishly trying to walk-crawl-swim to join the confrontation, but he wasn't making much progress. Dean tried not to be distracted by his brother's efforts. The kid  _so_  needed a hospital.

"Sam, stay there," Dean ordered, and he turned away from his slowly moving brother without waiting to see if he actually listened. He faced the specter. What he was planning was risky, but if peat was this thing's weakness, and if he timed this right. . . He didn't let his gaze stray toward the murky, boggy pond that surrounded the tiny bit of high ground he'd been fortunate enough to find, lest he clue the specter in to what his plan was. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on his father's face, and despite how hard it was for him to deny himself the hope that it actually was John, he focused on his father's death and what it had done for him, for Sam, for their family. Yes, his father was dead. Yes, it hurt like heck. But no, he hadn't died a coward. He'd died a hero. And Dean was going to make sure he didn't die just so that his sons could be conned into taking their own lives by his undead doppleganger weeks later.

He reached out his hand. "Okay," he said to the specter. "Okay, Dad." He forced himself not to choke as he called the imposter 'Dad.' "I think I understand. And I'd. . ." He took a deep breath. "I'd follow you anywhere."

He feared that the specter wasn't going to buy it. It was going to see right through his ruse, and then it was going to realize that luring to their deaths probably wasn't going to work at this point, so it was going to resort to ripping them apart, limb from limb. The specter  _did_  look dubious for a fraction of a second – but then it reached out John Winchester's hand and placed it in Dean's own hand.

Dean was surprised at how warm and  _real_  the hand was. He replayed how his father had died over and over in his head to remind him of the truth, because it was becoming a little harder to think again.

"Dean!" Sam's voice was strained, reminding Dean of just what he was fighting for.

He tightened his grip on the hand in his and launched himself off of his solid purchase and into the peat-filled, waterlogged, boggy mire that surrounded him, dragging the unsuspecting specter right behind him.

His momentum propelled him deeply into the muck, and he found himself far under the surface, but the specter's hand was still in his.

He couldn't see anything; he couldn't breathe. He could barely feel the thrashing of the monster as it tried desperately to get away, but it was trapped. It couldn't leave. Just like a ghost couldn't cross salt, this guy couldn't cross peat, and it was surrounded. It was confined, and Dean knew that if they were to take some gas and a match to this section of the swamp, it would be dead.

But there was a problem. Dean was stuck, too, and as hard as he tried to kick and thrash his way to the surface, finally letting go of the defeated specter's hand, he couldn't move. His air was rapidly running out. Sam was in a daze on the surface, in shock, and probably had no idea what was going on anymore. Dean had thought he might be able to swim to the top. Apparently, bogs and quicksand were pretty much synonymous.

Heh, synonymous. That was a big, impressive word. He'd love to see Sammy's face when he found out that Dean not only could pronounce it, but knew what it meant. College boy wasn't the only one with a brain.

Dean's thoughts were drifting now. There was a steady ache in his chest. He struggled not to open his mouth, because once he did, it was all over.

Splotches danced in front of his closed eyelids, a rainbow of pretty colors. His limbs lost all feeling, and he went limp.

Everything went black.


	12. Chapter 12

When Dean opened his eyes and saw a face hovering above him, it most definitely wasn't one of an angel, so he knew that he hadn't died and gone to Heaven. And he didn't  _think_  he'd gone the other direction, because as far as he knew, the person that was looking at him was alive.

"Bobby?" he rasped. His chest hurt, his whole body ached, his... everything hurt.

He tried to remember what happened, and it was apparent that Bobby knew that he was trying to figure it out, because the older hunter snorted and said, "Think about it. It'll come to ya."

And it did.

Dean shot up in bed so fast that it made his head spin, and he tottered where he sat, very lightheaded. "Sam!" he gasped. "What happened to Sam?"

"He'll live," said Bobby, and moved aside. Dean realized with a start that they were back in their motel room, and that he was sitting on one of the beds, and his brother was lying in the other, asleep.

"Thank God," Dean said, wondering why it hurt so much to breathe. He wanted to bolt off of the bed and to Sam's bedside, but he honestly didn't think that his legs could carry him that far right now, even if it was less than twenty feet, and since he knew that Sam was okay, he wasn't going to risk falling flat on his face in front of Bobby. The seasoned hunter already had enough ammo against him as it was, if only from stories that John had told him.

At the thought of John Winchester, it was like every part of his battered body froze, and he remembered everything that he had said - good and bad - about his dad in the bog. The words chased each other around in his head, making it spin.  _Coward. Hero. Coward. Hero._

He cleared his throat, not wanting to think about the whole horrific ordeal with the specter becoming his father, and asked, "How the heck did I end up here, alive? How is Sam alive? And why are you here?"

"Calm the questions, y'idgit. Neither one of ya are going anywhere for a while, so we've got plenty of time," Bobby said, leaning back in the chair that Dean had just now realized he'd been sitting in.

"Bobby. I  _need_  to know."

Bobby nodded, seeming to understand how important this was to Dean. "As soon as I got off the phone with you," he said, "I got on a plane and came to New Orleans."

"I thought you hated flying."

"I do. But I did what I had to to make sure you boys were safe. I know how tricky specters can be. As much as I told you about their ways, I was afraid that it'd still manage to trick you, the idgit that you are." Dean saw right through the insult that was meant to mask the emotions behind it.

"How'd you find us? In all of New Orleans, in all of the bogs, how did you find us?"

"Tracked your phone."

Dean blinked. "You can do that?"

"It isn't the Dark Ages, Dean. Cell phones have GPS trackers, too. I don't know how in the world your phone wasn't destroyed in all that rain, but let's just be glad it wasn't."

"I put it in an inside pocket," Dean remembered. "It was raining when I talked to you, remember? I knew to put it somewhere safe. Bet it was destroyed in the bog water, though."

"Oh, yeah," Bobby confirmed. "You won't get that phone working again. You'll need to get a new one. Sam's is gone, too. It's a good thing that I went ahead and tracked your phone right off, so I had an idea of where to go to. Otherwise, I might not have ever found you."

"But you wouldn't have been able to get there in time to pull me out of the bog."

"No. When I found you and Sam, you were right on the fringe of the trees, next to the road, lookin' like a pair of drowned rats. Ugly as hell, if you ask me."

"Thanks, Bobby," Dean said dryly.

"Anytime." Dean could tell he meant it.

Dean shook his head, partially in amusement, but mostly in confusion. "So how'd we get out?"

Bobby frowned. "As far as I can figure, it was your brother's doin'."

Dean shook his head again, this time in disbelief. "No," he said. "No way. He was a mess. He was weak, and injured, standing in several feet of water. He wouldn't have been able to..."

"But he did," Bobby said.

* * *

Sam didn't wake up until midday the next day. Dean had refused to stay in bed any longer than he absolutely had to, so by the time that Sam woke up, Dean had paced the motel room about forty times - and that was just in the past hour (to be fair, it was a very small room).

And when he opened his eyes, Dean made sure that the first thing his little brother saw was his big brother, looming right in his line of sight.

"Oh," said Sam, once he had blinked several times and grimaced in discomfort. "Um, hi, Dean."

"How ya feelin', Sammy?" Dean asked. He saw Bobby leave through the front door through the corner of his eye, and knew that the hunter was giving them some time to talk alone. He'd find out the rest of the story when he talked to Dean again later.

"Like I got a concussion and nearly drowned," Sam responded.

"And he's back... along with that dreaded sense of humor." It didn't slip Dean's notice that his brother hadn't sniped,  _It's Sam_  when Dean had called him Sammy. He knew that it could just be because he was tired and injured... but he wondered if there was something more significant to it than that.

Sam made a face. "Like yours is any better."

"Sam, I'm hilarious."

"Looking," Sam tagged on, a small grin on his face.

It was Dean's turn to make a face. "And here we are again with the bad humor," he announced. He nudged Sam's shoulder. "Bitch."

"Jerk."

The atmosphere was clearer and more pleasant than it had been in days - weeks, really, since before their father had died, but Dean knew that he had to break it. He had to find out what had happened.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?" Sam was looking at the scratchy, gaudy-pattered motel room comforter now, seemingly engrossed in the ugly floral designs.

"What the heck happened back in the bog? How are either of us still alive?"

Sam didn't look up when he answered. "I don't remember everything very clearly. But I do remember waking up, and seeing you plunge into the bog with the specter," he said slowly. It was like... like everything just stopped. I couldn't... I couldn't lose someone else. Because not only had I lost Dad, Jess, and Mom, but I'd gotten them back and then lost them again... or at least, I thought I'd gotten them back."

Dean's stomach churned. "I know the feeling," he said.

"Yeah, but at least you were able to fight it," Sam said, glaring daggers at the comforter. "I was such a gullible idiot, going off and chasing Je - the specter off into the middle of a bog. I should have known -"

"No, Sam," Dean said, his voice dead serious. "You knew something was off all along, but I wouldn't listen. And I... I kicked you out of the car because of it, and because of me, you almost got killed. Neither one of us were in our right minds. That thing, it's what it does, it..." He trailed off, not really wanting to talk about what it was that the specter did.

"But we're hunters," Sam said, finally meeting Dean's eyes with his own conflicted gaze. "We should have known."

"No. We'd never encountered it before, it it was a strong SOB. It wasn't your fault, Sam."

Sam stared at his brother resolutely. "So it wasn't yours, either."

Dean was silent for a moment, finding it much harder to forgive himself than it was to forgive Sam for any wrongdoings. "Yeah, well," he said, and thankfully, Sam didn't turn into a complete girl and start trying to help Dean through his feelings.

Instead, Sam said, "Anyway," and Dean knew that he was getting back to what had happened. "I didn't know what to do, but I did know that I couldn't let you die. I couldn't lose you. So I kind of waded through the shallower parts of the bog - and I knew they were shallow because I'd used them before when I was following the thing, and somehow I actually managed to remember what ground was solid -"

"It's because your a nerdy college boy," Dean supplied helpfully. "Always thinking, always remembering things that normal people wouldn't think twice about."

"Normal people wouldn't find themselves with a facing off with a specter in the middle of a bog," Sam reminded him. "Can I just tell the story now?"

Dean nodded curtly, deciding for Sam's sake - and his own - that he wouldn't let this drag out any longer than it had to. It was a traumatic experience for them both, and neither of them wanted to relive it any longer than they absolutely had to. "Go ahead."

"As far as I can remember, I latched my foot around a big root that rose up out of the swamp, and I got on my stomach, and was able to submerge the whole upper half of my body into the muck. I groped around, and was about to give up, when I brushed against your hand. So I grabbed on and pulled, using my foot as an anchor. It hurt," he admitted, "and I probably sprained it - it's wrapped, I think - but I got you out. And then somehow... somehow we got back to the road. I don't really remember how. I just remember saying over and over, 'Tell me where to go... tell me where to go.' Somehow, amazingly, I found my way out of the woods, and it was pretty quickly, too, and when we got to the side of the road, I saw that you'd stopped breathing somewhere along the way. So I did CPR and brought you back. That's all I remember. I think I passed out. And I'm assuming, since Bobby was in here earlier, that he somehow managed to find us and take us here, or to a hospital or something."

"I'm sure he patched us up himself," Dean said. "He's had a lot of experience with this kind of thing before." He snorted. "And at least now I know why it feels like a moose has danced all over my chest."

Sam chuckled weakly at the joke. "Yeah..."

"Sam, you said that you did CPR. How the heck did you manage it in your condition? I don't know how you managed to lug me all the way through the bog without passing out or drowning yourself, but after all that - with the concussion, and standing in the rain, and everything - how did you manage to bring me back?"

Sam looked at him, eyes wide, and said as if it were the simplest, most obvious answer in the world, "I told you, I was not going to lose you."

Dean was astounded as he considered the profoundness of the simple statement. Sam had been half-dead himself, yet he had managed to do CPR and bring Dean back to the land of the living anyway, because he _wasn't going to lose his brother._  There was suddenly a lump in his throat, and it wasn't his Adam's apple. "Thank you, Sam," he said, and he really meant it. Sam nodded, looking Dean straight in the eye, and suddenly the huggy-feely moment got to be a bit to much for them both, and Dean cleared his throat. "So, I think I have an idea about how you managed to find your way out of the bog." _  
_

Sam raised his eyebrows, and then winced.

"You've got a concussion, smart one," Dean said.

"Yeah... thanks. So what's your explanation to my sudden ability to chart the bog waters?"

Dean snorted. "When I talked to Bobby earlier, he said something about specters that I just kind of brushed off at the time, but now... He said that some of the lore about them says that if you manage to trap one, it is forced to either grant you one wish or answer one question. Obviously, I was the one who trapped it, but maybe it helped you because you were muttering about needing a way out right after it got trapped. I don't know. I thought that it was kind of silly, the whole 'one wish, one question' thing, but it's the only explanation."

"Wow," said Sam. "That's... weird."

"What do you expect? We're hunters, Sammy. And Winchesters."

"I know." Sam smiled, and there was a gleam in his eyes. "And it's Sam." He said it with a big grin, though, and Dean knew that through all of the horror, all of the trauma, that something had changed between them - and it was for the better.

"You know what the craziest part is, though?" Dean said. "That we were able to make it through all that freezing water without getting sick."

"Yeah," said Sam. His nose twitched.

"Oh, no," said Dean. "No, no." His own throat started to itch. He forced himself not to cough.

"Dean, I can't hold it -  _achoo!_ "

Dean couldn't stop it anymore. He coughed loudly, and grimaced.

"Well, crap."


End file.
